Two Line Reviews - #460

Movie: Special 26 (Hindi, 2013)

Plot: A group of 4 con-men posing as IT Sleuths, lay out careful plans and loot illegal wealth off Politicians and Businessmen. The CBI gets involved in chasing the con-men who leave no trails and on their landmark 50th Con-attempt, they pose as CBI Officers & recruit a special group of 26 officials to make the biggest of their heists. CBI, working its way into their attempt, makes its own plans to catch them red-handed when they are in action. Do the con-men outclass the CBI with their Special 26?!

What Works?

• Neeraj Pandey showed us what he is capable of with his A Wednesday. This one, again of the cat-and-mouse format, reiterates his capabilities in deftly handling subjects and screenplays of that kind.
• Akshay Kumar deserves appreciations for his neat performance as much as he deserves it for sharing screen space with a lot others, including Anupham Kher who makes more than a mark as Mr. Sharma!
• The Manoj Bajpai, Jimmy Shergill sequences offer a nice match-up and adds to the excitement.
• Sanjoy Chowdhury's background score that is on a 'repeat' mode in the film plays its role in keeping us engaged. The dialogues with shades of dark humour works quite well!

What Doesn't?

• For one, the portion involving the hero's love affair could have easily been done away with! Kajal Aggarwal ends up wasting film reels as she doesn't even have the usual glossy song-dance sequences in this! And those build-ups preceding each heist - That was going overboard!
• The film's overall content has the same flaw a recent Thamizh heist film had! There is a big twist but things would have been a lot easier for the con-men if that twist hadn't even been On!

Not very special, but definitely watchable!

Two Line Reviews - #454

Movie: Maattrraan (Thamizh, 2012)

Plot: The lives of a rich and happy conjoint twins duo get completely disrupted ending in the death of one when a group probes on the successful heath-drink product the twins' father's company makes. The other twin, with clues from what his brother had gathered, sets on a trip to a country of the erstwhile USSR and finds answers to the mystery shrouding the product - answers of the order he would not even have dreamt of!

What Works?

• The film has a tidy plot and the narrative doesn't reveal all the stuff in one go giving rise to a well-paced screenplay. K.V. Anand needs to be commended for this nice treatment which makes one feel like reading a solid thriller novel.
• Suriya hasn't had the scope for a strenuous performance but brings life to the bromance and one feels the impact when one of them dies. The energetic twin's antics are spontaneous and is a winner! Kajal Aggarwal is a definite eye-candy in songs!
• The technical team (comprising the men behind the lens, scissors & VFX) has done a pretty good job and efforts of the experimental digital head replacement and other VFX techniques are to be seen as things don't seem ugly when the twins are shown to fight,dance, talk and move together.
• Anand's signs of his future success as a commercial director are all there in the finely positioned comic one-liners and the visuals of the Rettai Kadhire title song.
• Harris's songs are foot-tapping but the flow-bothering Kaal Mulaitha Poove could have been avoided.

What Doesn't?
The film's climax where the father gets minutes to justify his act & the stretch the film takes to try in not giving a rough treatment to the age-old 'father-son sentiment' brings yawn near the finish-line.

Decent effort, nice treatment; Deserved a better run than what it got!

Two Line Reviews - #435

Movie: Thuppaakki (Thamizh, 2012)

Plot: An army officer comes home to Mumbai for vacation. Vacation time turns vocation time when he accidentally hits on a sleeper cell member and creates a plan to disrupt the terrorist group's plan. Things get riskier when he tries to find the instructor so that the sleeper cell network can be made dormant. In the middle of all this, there's time for some romance too!

What Works?

• AR Murugadoss shows in places that he is indeed the guy who made Ramana and presents a simple story in a thrill-filled impactful & intense screenplay of the Q&A/cat-and-mouse format.Watch out for the pre-Interval scene!
• I never wished I would say this someday but Vijay has finally shown he can deliver solid stuff without being preachy, angry or irkesomely kiddish (Something which you would see in almost all his films in the last decade). In specially designed outfits (especially those in the Aleikka song & the interval tuxedo he wears), with an ultra-fit body, spotless dubbing (English & Hindi as well!) and superb screen presence, he steals the show!
• One never gets reminded of a camera being held somewhere to can the shots and that shows Santhosh Sivan's stellar work behind the lens. Sreekar Prasad's Editing meanders between good and bad (abrupt cuts at places).
• Murugadoss has placed the action scenes where apt and the stunts have come out well. Vidyut Jamwal provides the thrills but for the climax. Sathyan's tiny presence doesn't go unnoticed.

What Doesn't?

• Kajal Agarwal does what is expected of her but in an otherwise racy film her portions (and Jayaram's) are speed-breakers.
• Climax could have been a lot better given what was promised before. Ghilli like act by Vijay to mend body damage was comical, atleast, for the 'not-so-fans'.
• Harris Jeyaraj's songs fall flat. There's no hummable number except maybe Kutti puli kootam. His deja vu background score leaves hell of a lot to be desired!

Bullets from this Thuppaaki hit the target, more or less!