Two Line Reviews - #259

Movie: Avan Ivan (Thamizh, 2011)

Plot: Two step brothers in a village are contrasting characters but when it comes to craziness & loyalty for a village chief, they are similar. Being petty trouble mogers to the police, they enjoy life with the backing of the 'Highness' chief. When the chief is brutally murdered by a rugged villager on vendetta, the duo join hands to thrash him in typical Bala style.


Highlights:

• The high points of this film are the performances of its lead players - Bala has his way with his actors getting the best out of all - Be it the highness,Ambika,the policeman, the police constable heroine 'Baby' or ARYA/VISHAL.
• The two central characters perform amazingly well. Vishal's squint eyed effeminate like role is a surprise and he does marvelously well but to me, the spontaneous and witty Arya is the show-stealer. He plays foil to Vishal's dramatic role and yet scores big.
• The songs and background score of Yuvan comes to the fore in this film and is of top quality. The bit song on Vishal & Baby is typical Yuvan stuff.
• The camera work of Arthur Wilson is great as usual & the locations, as often in Bala's films, are unique!

Lowlights:

• Bala's story, screenplay & his aide's dialogues are low points. While the story & screenplay are nothing new - just the same as Pithamagan - the dialogues too seem like a repeat from his previous films.
• Some highlly disgusting scenes; 
• Examples:The Arya heroine's kuttikaranam scene & the most irrelevant of all scenes I have seen in films - The self-trumpet blower Suriya's scene & his dialogue justifying his cheap publicity act. Unthinkably irritating scenes in an ordinary film.

Just a rehash of Pithamagan; Nothing new in it.