The top movie reviews this week
Pa Ranjith's Thangalaan Has Solid Vision, Not-So-Great Execution |
It is clear that Ranjith’s work as a filmmaker is an expedition in image making. He wants to show things on screen that have never existed before in Tamil cinema. |
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IN THANGALAAN, Pa Ranjith travels back in time to mid-19th century — 1850 to be precise — Veppur in North Arcot. Time travel is not the only fantastical element in Thangalaan. The story too has its share of fantasy with a dash of myth, legend and magic realism. Thangalaan (Vikram) narrates a not-really-bedtime story to his family: his wife Gangamma (Parvathy Thiruvothu) and three little kids. They are lying down under a cart; his eldest son is fast asleep on it. The story is about his ancestors who, in an attempt to win land, tried to mine gold from the area beyond an anthropomorphised elephant hill. But the legendary goddess Aarathi (Malavika Mohanan) and her mythical army of shadows put up a resistance. Aarathi was seemingly vanquished, with her belly cut open and the rushing blood turned into gold upon contact with the rocks. But now, the zamindars and the puppet kings make Thangalaan and his tribe work on their own land without wages or a share in the crop. And then along come the British, looking for gold in the place haunted by Aarathi.
Lover of classics or consumer of all that's new — we've got you covered. Subscribe to the OTTplay Premium Jhakaas monthly pack, for only Rs 249. Tamil Prabha and Ranjith’s script is epic and ambitious. If Natchathiram Nagargiradhu is Ranjith’s most experimental work, Thangalaan is probably his wildest swing. The edit pattern is frantic and dialogues complex (in the original dialect). It is John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre-meets-Selvaraghavan’s Aayirathil Oruvan. When the wealthy zamindar takes away their land and imposes more taxes, the British arrive in the form of Lord Clement (Daniel Caltagirone). No one has dared to go in search of gold in the cursed land, but he orders the tribesmen to accompany him on the expedition. With the crushing oppression of the rock pressing them against a hard place, they have no choice but to go. — ADITYA SHRIKRISHNA |
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Khel Khel Mein: Akshay Holds A Masterclass In Comedy |
IT IS ONLY AUGUST and Mudassar Aziz’s Khel Khel Mein is Akshay Kumar’s third film this year. On paper, it is not an oddity given the actor is known for headlining multiple projects simultaneously. But with the string of commercial failures behind him (his last hit was Rohit Shetty’s Sooryavanshi in 2021), every release feels like a renewed gesture from Kumar to stand back up and want to be liked. It is almost like a duel, a self-defeating exercise, where the audience keeps disapproving of his work and to combat that, he dunks us with more non-committal, tiresome and provoking work. In Khel Khel Mein, a superfluous comedy that touches upon everything from queerness to workplace harassment without quite dipping a toe, the actor has finally stopped trying and the film is better for it. — ISHITA SENGUPTA |
| Vedaa Can't Land The Sucker Punch It Aspires To |
IN NIKHIL ADVANI’s Vedaa, a Dalit girl wants to learn boxing. It is not as much of a passion for her as it is a self-defence tool. In the small town of Rajasthan where she lives, even basic dignity is out of bounds. Upper-caste men freely make videos of her and the violation of privacy is so present and pervasive that she has stopped resisting. Amidst the adversity, boxing opens up as a leveller; an act of brute strength and agility that can help her win if not get even. Vedaa comes after a line of films that have explored the sports in connection to caste. There is Pa Ranjith’s immense Sarpatta Parambarai (2021); there is also Anurag Kashyap’s terrific Mukkabaaz (2017). Advani does something entirely different with the correlation, in which he restrains from expounding even when the film starts off hinting at it. — I.S. |
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Stree 2 Illuminates Amar Kaushik's Visceral Ambition |
MAINSTREAM HINDI CINEMA is a lot of things except audacious. The space is so heavily dictated by commerce that there is no narrative, only patterns. It takes one film to work for ten others to be made in the same mould. Consider last year when a series of tentpole ventures were bankrolled due to the success of one. In mainstream Hindi cinema, creative stakes are so low that ambition here goes to die. Which is why it is a marvel that something like Stree 2 exists, or more specifically a filmmaker like Amar Kaushik does. — I.S. |
| Raghu Thatha Is A Refreshing Palate Cleanser Of A Film |
IF you care for them, Raghu Thatha has several things going for it. It’s a rare Tamil film led by a female star Keerthy Suresh, a proven actor. The ensemble boasts of a laundry list of good performers beyond its lead who add so much to the film. It is written and directed by Suman Kumar (of The Family Man, Farzi fame) in his feature debut. But more than anything, it is a film that props up the genre of comedy, something that has been sorely lacking in Indian cinema (especially Tamil) for a long while. — A.S. |
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