"Dil Dhadakne Do" (Hindi Movie Review)

"Dil Dhadakne Do" is a non-tragic version of Titanic -  What happens when a dysfunctional family that never find time for each other land up in a cruise for ten days. And the problems that come from a lifetime of miscommunication and under-communication surface to the sea - until they get a life-saver, actuallly a life-boat to find happiness in a sea of unresolved puzzles. Zoya Akhtar weaves a story with too many characters and unwarranted adult scenes which make a not-so-perfect viewing in 165 minutes. Neither the audience nor the players in the movie have an escape route - because we are all at sea with a contrived tirade of pride and prejudice from a mechanical rich man's family led by Anil Kapoor. But for the stark message of the movie - Give love to your kids but also give them freedom to do what they want - and some remarkable performances by Anil Kapoor (father), Shefali Shah (mother), Priyanka Chopra (daughter) and Ranvir Singh (son), the movie crawls until a cameo performer Farhan Akhtar restores some sanity. 

Zoya's strength is her characterisation - each artist gets his or her arclight performance but her weakness in the movie is to get too many characters mess with the main storyline of the Mehra family, it dilutes the intensity of the story. By making the family pet-dog Pluto talk about the story and the stereotypes presented in it through the voice of Aamkir Khan, Zoya may have scored a self-goal because it makes the film a documentary with comments from Aamir's voice with the caustic pen of Javed Akhtar. For a long time, you feel you are watching another Raju Hiran's film where relentless commentary runs in the background with subtextual messages and chatty scenes. What redeems this monotony, occasionally, is the background score by Shankar Ehsaan Loy and associates - it is mostly chords, violin and piano. The songs are a saving grace but come few and far in between - it is either an aberration when you don't expect or a rarity when you desperately need it, spacing is bad. The Punjabi Song in the second half is the only song that stays despite another impressive album from the trio music direcors. Cinematography stands out because this is again a film that is promoting cruise tourism, sixteen years after the film "Titanic" swept the world. 

Despite a brutal portrayal of how the rich live, think and behave with one another, Zoya's characterisation shows gaps in understanding. Inconceivable that with so many friends invited on cruise, the son and daughter grow up with such emptiness and rudderlessness and without affection and understanding from parents. Neither do we find friends who can be sounding boards for each other. It is as if everybody is on their own trip of making it big and so full of themselves with never-ending vanity and disaffections. Whether such paradoxes in parenting exist in totality or is a figment of Zoya's fiction is unfathomable and surreal. Impossible that the mother loathes everything but has a stigma against divorce. Impractical for a rich kid to be forced into father's biusiness and not raise a moment of protest in so many years. Whether it resonates widely and whether it is credulous, one should ask the director and the story-writer - could there be greyness in some of the stereotypes that she typically shows as in her earlier films like ZNMD and LuckByChance. What she shows is a rich society that has taboos, doesn't talk turkey, traps their children in hopeless marriages and enslaves them in illiberal notions of misery while moving on in other aspects - that is the most incredulous aspect of the story - which is a surprise because Zoya invests well in her storylines with intelligence and plausible emotions. The fun part of the film is carried out by Ranvir Singh and Anushka Sharma in a sizzler of a romantic track that shows the chemistry between them. If only Zoya had a better editor and a story-writer with authentic sensibilities of the worlds being projected, and invested in entertainment, this film would have scored high. Now it is upto the audience to filter this low-emotion false imagery the way they want. Or, enjoy the beautiful visuals of Eurozone countries like Greece, Turkey and Spain on a cruise themselves - which is what the film anyway wants. Watchable but doesn't give you a high like "Zindagi Naa Milegi Doobaara". I would watch ZNMD or Titanic again anyday than this sober fare.

Rating: 3/5

#DilDhadakneDo #ZoyaAkhtar #RanvirSingh #PriyankaChopra #AnilKapoor  #ShefaliShaah #MovieReviews #FarhanAkhtar #ShankarEhsaanLoy #SridharSattirajuReviews

"Pandaga Chesko" (Telugu Movie Review)

The movies in 80s mostly are about hero dancing with the heroine on the slopes of Ooty or Kodaikanal and then wear a disguise and get into the dens of the villain and tame him. Hundreds of films are mostly about this theme which now seem ad nauseum. In the 90s, Tollywood followed the "Hum Aapke Hain Kaun" formula with films like "Ninne Pelladithaa" for many films until the audience clamored for new ways of story-telling. That came through Sreenu Vaitla's team with movies like "Dhee" in the 2000s and perfected with "Ready". The dizzy cinematic experience of watching a romantic couple unite two disjointed families and rekindling affections for each other has been primed to perfection with "Atharintiki Daaredi" - which crossed Rs.100 crores. That means the plot is beaten to death. But PK's protege on screen, a portly and smartphone version of Pawan Kalyan, Ravi Teja and Mahesh Babu - Ram continues the tedium of the plot mixed in all these movies aforesaid in "Pandaga Chesko" and gives us one of the most cliched and low-energy entertainers of the year. 

The story is exactly like "Atharintiki Daaredi". Ram is a multi-billion dollar scion of a family in Portugal about to marry a business partner Sonal Chauhan that will create a mega conglomerate. On the verge of marriage, his organisation gets slapped by a notice to cease the Indian factory on a PIL from GreenEnergy (Or Greenpeace?) headed by Rakul Preet Singh who cares for the environment more than Al Gore and Dalai Lama. Rakul Preet Singh, at home, gets divided between  a doting father Sampath  and an affectionate uncle SaiKumar who were once thick friends but we gather,  later, become estranged because of Sai's involvement in the elopement of Sampath's daughter with Rao Ramesh. Ram is born to that wedlock and hence has to come back to atone for the misunderstanding and re-unite the families sparring in hatred. How Ram tames the ugly side of his uncles and gets the family rooting for each other is the second half. 

The film runs to 162 minutes length enough to bore you out because neither the story-telling nor the jokes are anything new. Director Gopichand who made films like "Don Seenu" has shown his capability hasn't embraced higher levels of cinema despite the penmanship of Kona Venkat. Kona's dialogues hardly fire with a few pistol shots here and there. Performances by Sai Kumar, Sampath stand out. Brahmanandam clearly is struggling to fire up despite one of the longest roles in recent times - he shows right in the beginning and stays till the end. Brahmi's characterisation is a travesty of modern sensibilities of Tollywood. He is seen leching at heroine, happening more frequently in Telugu films. Can you ever imagine the greats like Padmanabham, Raja Babu, Relangi act voyeuristically and get laughs and respect. Film makers should note this approach is the beginning of the end of Brahmanandam. MS Narayana, lucky to see more of him but since he has passed out before dubbing his own trademark voice, the voiceover does only half justice to his impact. Yet, he has a key important role which gets few laughs. 

Music by Thaman sounds deja vu but somehow gives the sole energy that is lacking in a Ram film. His peppy music alongwith Sameer Reddy's cinematography are the two bright spots of the film. Sonal Chauhan actually outsizzles Rakul Preet Singh in the film with her looks, and glamor. Rakul cannot act beyond her pouts and angry looks and too much exposure with too many heroes is going to undermine her long-term sustainability. Ram  is a super-suave hero and metrosexual to the core but his energy levels have dropped in this film. He concentrated more on his looks and dances rather than performance which is usually in sync with his good looks. Except for one more climactic outburst, Ram the actor is invisible throughout but if you want to see what power-dressing is all about Ram's dress sense takes the cake.  Comedy is cliched and fails to create big impact moments despite a rich talent. On the whole, the movie is not novel, the treatment nothing new and the screenplay average - Tollywood will be better the sooner it comes out of this tried Mayabazar screenplay trappings.

Rating: 2.5/5

#PandagaChesko #MovieReviews #SridharSattirajuReviews #Ram #RakulPreetSingh #SSThaman #Tollywood #TelugufilmReviews

"Pataas" (Telugu Movie Review) for today's Premiere

I wrote this review after watching "Pataas". Realised I haven't posted it and today "pataas is getting aired on Gemini TV at 6 pm."Pataas" (Telugu) is entertaining film. A bit late I know but a short one from me. In a single para, as someone wanted. Good to see Kalyan Ram score a hit after ten long years. After "Athanokkade", this must be a standout film for him - less classy, but more masala-oriented and entertaining. What I like about Kalyan Ram is that he never allowed his family fortunes to build halo around him. He could have chosen to finance half the so-called hit directors, but instead he backed himself with different and at times risky scripts but gave breaks to a new director everytime. This time it is Anil Ravipudi - he will surely go places because he has the knack of packing energy and punch in every scene even if it appears often predictable. 141 minutes of relentless fun with loads of comedy from Srinivas Reddy, Asutosh Rana, Brahmanandam and of course, MS Narayana. MS Narayana signed off with a hurrah and can be seen until the last frame. Music by Sai Karthik is average; he is better at RR than song composing but passes off as okay. For the police force, the film is a morale-boosting film - lifts them into higher orbit with moral rebalancing at the end. Heroine Shruti Sodhi is thunderous but lacks cuteness. Saikumar carries off his role with all sobriety and grace. Kalyan Ram is the guy who worked hard on dancing, acting, dialogue delivery and dress sense in the film  - and comes out good in every frame. Hope he builds on the image from the  success  guaranteed from this film. With "Temper" and "Lion" set for release, looks like the Nandamuri family is on a leash after a long time. Patience is the virtue of Tollywood fans - they will reward you if you are from the film's royal family even if you deliver even after ten years (Kalyan Ram). It happens so often with superstars. Rating: 3.25/5

#Pataas #Patas #KalyanRam #MovieReviews #Tollywood #MSNarayana #Nandamuri #NandamuriKalyanRam 

"Lion" (Telugu)

Tollywood's longest running dual role matinee idol Balakrishna tries to roar back with a different plot and a new director Satya Deva. The film was expected to to do roaring business given this is Balayya's first film as an MLA. It was expected to be a hat-trick victory for all those blazing guns of Nandamuri who sighted victory on "Pataas" and "Temper". But Alas! bad screenplay and lousy narration alongwith zombie treatment have spoilt it. Trisha and Radhika Apte are roped in for glamor but both looked a leaf too familiar from old foliage. Mani Sharma, the music director who gave Balayya second lease of life from "Samarasimha Reddy" onwards scores just one melodious song and lackadaisical BGM for this film - it looks as if he was imitating DSP's "Legend" score. Very disappointing score except the first song with Siva Balaji, Balayya and Archana.

What went wrong in this 137 minute film without a marked-out sequence, if you count out the countless number of stunts and blood-dripping violent deaths and identified flying objects jumping off the earth's axis? Story is under-developed, promising but bizarre in the end. Bose (Balayya) is a tech-savvy CBI officer notorious for raiding the most powerful men amassing public loots and gawdily displaying their stealth. His eccentric ways frame many powerful leaders including CM Prakash Raj who became a CM by killing Vijay Kumar in a "twisted" way. (That is about the most unique point in the film that even channel programming can be hacked to manufacture news). 

Balayya                                                                                                                                                                        is the Joint Director of CBI who is about to crack the "cold-blooded murder". Here is where director Satya infuses a piece out of sci-fi movies. What happens if the CBI officer creates an unhackable firewall that self-reveals itself to the CBI head-quarters whether the officer dies or not? And how Prakash Raj reconstructs a bizarre world that never existed around Balayya while trying to annihilate him through medical, mortal and unthinkable ways of torture and harrassment. All of this masterminding memes are revealed to us in multiple flashbacks before and after interval, sometimes through other characters and sometimes through the hero and the villain. And then, wonder of wonders, after all this mixture of Robin Cook and Sidney Sheldon plot mixture, comes a James Bond twist where the CBI officer does spectacular stunts - with feats galore. 

In one scene, he detects an injectible that is injected into his body so he smashes a mirror in the washroom and thaws out the damn piece. In another scene, he is caught by a speeding chopper out of a bazooka van and then to save himself cuts the ropes that bind him with scissors beneath his shoes ripping open. In almost every scene, the CBI officer has not come for a raid or slapping charges after investigation but actually exchange fire like some battlefield generals across borders.It is encouraging to think that the director has some futuristic vision of our CBI officers - who combine the skills of a Navy Seal with that of a Computer Geek and spice it up with the chivalry of a Jam Bond. Because Satya Deva is a first-time director, the film suffers a lot of impressario stunts and special effects and high-decibel violence with a sense of intelligence that is actually illogical and absurd. Because of the fatal fault in this bizarre storyline, Balayya looks without makeup till interval and then runs like a Gazille without much romance and emotions in the second half. 

The romance remains a non-starter because of the amnesiac Balayya in the first half, and the couple of  songs here and there hardly give relief to the audience. Only those echo-sounding dialogues can uplift a film of this nature but the director has written them himself so he sprinkles just a few impactful dialogues - hardly enough in a Balayya film. My favorite dialogue: "Subash Chandra Bose has no death date, and this Bose has no death"). Comedy by Ali and MS Narayana (how many films has he done before passing out?) doesn't fire. Prakash Raj is the most insipid villain seen in a long time. Despite some dazzling stunts and visual effects, the movie wears you out and bakes your brain. Balayya fans will have to wait for his  98th film or 100th film (with Boyapati Srinu) to have a hurrah after "Legend". There are interesting obvious resemblances the CBI director Laxminarayana's raid on Gali Janardhan Reddy but instead of building it up with the seriousness of a super sleuth, the film loses its way in the middle. Skip it if you can't take mindless violence and senseless story. Satya Deva needs to regroup for better treatment, story, emotions and screenplay..

Rating: 2/5

#Lion #LionReview #Balakrishna #NandamuriBalakrishna #SatyaDeva #MovieReviews #Tollywood

"Piku" (Hindi Film Review)

Rarely comes a movie with a starcast, story and narration that draw you out of your zone of mind chatter and then makes a point or two in 125 minutes flat without any formulaic elements of story-telling or even statutory warnings. "Piku" has raised great expectations when Shoojit Sircar, the director of "Vicky Donor" and "Madras Cafe" cast Amitabh Bachchan, Deepika Padukone and Irrfan Khan in an improbable combination. Surprise, he delivers with style and aesthetics. And engages you till the end with a screenplay that packs a million emotions, it has a storyline that resonates with most people.

Piku is Deepika Padukone who stays with her seventy-year old father Bhaskar Banerjee (Amitabh Bachchan). Piku is single and a key partner in an architecture firm who never takes a break even as she dates many men in the hope of marrying one day. Amitabh is a hypochondriac old man whose sole problem in life is constipation. He also worries about all the parameters that make old men make weekly trips to diagnostic centers - BP, Sugar, blood count and so on. Deepika and Amitabh argue about health issues and about that over-anxiety about   smoothness in bowel movements that eludes Amitabh till the very end. Piku has an obsession over her father's health habits, her father has a neurotic thing or two about his health and constipation. Both get worked up and miss out on the real fun in life - it takes a toll on Piku's work habits. She calls a regular taxi service to ferry her on work trips but almost always drives the car drivers to bump up.. Enter the owner of the fleet of cars - Irrfan. With the main characters built out like this, an idea comes to both father and daughter to head out for a holiday in homeland Kolkata by road. Irrfan is forced to drive the vehicle because none of the drivers turn up.

 For the next 1500 kilometers of road trip, Irrfan becomes a curious bystander to the intriguing fights, ego-trips, patch-ups and face-offs between the three of them.  Irrfan is a stranger to the family yet he becomes an intruder who negotiates emotions and drives home a perspective or two on what is bugging the twosome. At times, Irrfan also throws tantrums or tramples upon the ego of Amitabh or  holds a mirror to Deepika on the way she has been dealing with her father all these years. Most of the times, the exchange of words between Irrfan and Amitabh is fiery but what Amitabh realises is that Irrfan is dry-cleaning his funeral clothes and making him see ways of getting out of a lot of self-created mess -  mostly in the mind. Shoojit Sircar gives us an unhurried and dispassionate overview of the emotions of millions of Indians as we deal with health issues of aging parents and clueless youth who have their head in the sand on matters of balancing affections with personal goals. Will Amitabh solve his health issues thanks to Irrfan? Does Deepika find a man finally? What is Irrfan's role in both of their lives? Is there a twist in climax? (Hint: There is...) "Piku" takes you on an exhilarating ride of emotions and treatment like never seen before. It is difficult to give a three-act structure to a story that moves out of your living room and back but Sircar pulls it off with  memorable story-telling.

What makes the film stand out is not just the brilliance of all the technical masters - in photography and in music by Anupam Roy but in the aspects of direction and narration and finer subtleties and sensibilities of Bengali households. If you have been closer to a Bengali, you will realise the DNA in their social intercourse - everybody loves good food and roots for their culture but they also have intellectual candour and the abrasiveness of behavior towards each other. Daughter corrects the GK of father, sister-in-law gives it back to her sister's husband, a family tenant talks turkey with her avuncular "owner". In such a "Didi-style" war of words, one wonders why Bengalis rarely inter-marry, keep fighting with each other but bond better overall than many other regions. Sircar captures the essence of an ordinary story and constructs a mesmerising mosaic of human emotions - there are dollops of humor that bring the roof down in almost every scene with every character - sometimes insinuative and mostly  explicit about the motions of the human digestion. For this film, Shoojit farts all his way with the ultimate compilation of jokes and trivia about constipation and all that - that  regales us despite being predictable. Messages that come out of the film are purely accidental, not intentional so Sircar ensures the movie is never preachy and boring. That shot of Deepika Padukone playing  Shuttle Badminton is a paisa-vasool scene.

 Performances by all the three stand out - Amitabh, you don't see him, you only see a Bengali babu who is finicky about his health and self-righteous about everything else. This film is the finest for AB in years  - better than  the flippant experiments of recent years - people will enshrine AB for this role forever for he has truly imbibed the core of a Bengali patriarch. Deepika gives an impressive performance that dovetails her hiterto unexplored dimensions of acting into a complex role. Hiding her emotions, guarding her vulnerability, and hardlining a tough father while letting go when needed - whoa, what a role! Irrfan essays another effortless role as an owner who is at more than one receiving end. He has mastered the art of input-output ratio for an actor - just knows what dosage to give for each scene and yet leave the audience gasping for what is not expressed. His school of acting is quite different from the montony of a Naseerudin Shah or an Anupam Kher. It spawned the likes of Nawazuddinn Siddiqi but Irrfan is a malleable actor who stumps you with new tricks each time. A surprise packet has been Moushimi  Chatterjee - so full of energy and live-wire Bengali goodness and outspoken-ness. She makes her entry in both the halves with  good impact. Raghubeer Yadav as the doctor is also good. Musical output by Roy takes the cinematic experience to new highs. Also the role by the cinematographer - he shows great visuals of the Ganges and the multi-faceted personality of Kolkata but you still cannot miss the sponsor names like Amul milk more than once. But how did he shoot those moving pictures of a car in motion? Haven't seen that in many films and considering the lengthy footage of the travel, it looked authentic - the visuals of the roads. 

Sircar's strength seems  to turn an ordinary story into a fireball that keeps snowballing until you get the main points, in crisp format. No pretensions, no flashbacks, no mundane stuff but taut editing. No wonder, he is done with in 125 minutes. If only the jokes were not just about the stools all the time, this could have been a five-star movie but who cares? This is one of the cleanest movies in recent times and deserves a universal view (Can't understand why a U/A rating was given). If you have parents or not, this film is sure to move you. Most watchable and entertaining.

Rating: 4.5/5

#Piku #PikuReview #AmitabhBachchan #DeepikaPadukone #Irrfan #ShoojitSircar #AnupamRoy #MovieReviews #Bollywood #Bengali #MoushimiChatterjee #Sony #RaghhubirYadav

Parag Parikh - The Doyen of Value Investing In India

Parag Parikh, 61 passed away today after attending the Annual Shareholders' Meeting at Berkshire Hathway. Ironic and tragic. Tragic because he was about to board a plane waiting for him in Nebraska, missed a signal and got hit by a Chevy pick-up van running in the right direction from the opposite side. Ironic, because from the age of 25, Parag Parikh became addicted to the world of Value Investing, then groomed himself in the style of Buffett and Graham and followed their approaches rigorously. The adrenalin from following the world's greatest investor kept driving him all his life - and in the end the same high got him knocked dead in the morning, after waking to hear the Sage of Omaha the previous evening. 

I met Parag too in one of those years between the Harshad Mehta scam and the time that Templeton launched its first (and India's first) mutual fund based on the contrarian investing philosophy of Sir John Templeton. He was a stock-broker then and was rattling away the virtues of picking stocks at a fraction of their book value. He used to say the Indian Stock Market is going to reward the value investor just as any other market in developed markets if one pays heed to the legends of value investing. He was devouring books by Charlie Munger, David Dreyman, Christopher Browne, Bill Nygren and Howard Marks. His interest in picking stocks with a huge margin of safety got ignited after meeting his father's friend - the legendary investor Chandrakant Sampat who was the original big bull who had an unblemished record in the Indian Stock Markets. Groomed by Sampat, Parikh picked up as a stock-broker and started doing original research. As an ardent student of Buffett, he chose Indian Shaving Products (Gillette India) which saw huge unlocking of value before the Malhotras sold out. Since literature in the space of Investing was booming, Parikh derived "Ekalavya" wisdom from partaking in many books on Investing with a value bias. There was only one other erudite scholar who could vie for the top place as a pioneer in value investing - Chetan Parikh - who wrote extensively about the first generation of India's most famous stock-pickers in a book which is still a non-pareil "India's Money Monarchs". ( I only have a photocopy edition) but Chetan Parikh never ran a scheme or advised clients on money-matters. Parag Parikh, on the other hand, put his money where his mouth was. He wrote a book "Stocks to Riches - Insights on Investor Behavior" which set his ambitions high to be recognised as a thought-leader in Indian investing. 

"Stocks to Riches" was a seminal book on giving more than orderly interpretation on how stocks should be only invested for the long run. This Jeremy Siegal-like approach was backed by a serious plan to walk the talk. He started giving lectures on Value Investing with plenty of Indian examples from VST Ltd. to HPCL and BPCL, Engineers India and L&T against conventional growth stocks like ITC and HUL. He formed Parag Parikh Financial Advisory Services (PPFAS) and started a Portfolio Management Services for investors with concepts baked from Behavioral Finance and cemented in the core of Value and Contrarian Investing - quality of management, track record, corporate governance, treatment of minority shareholders, public behavior, margin of safety, business models, and value drivers. In the late nineties and early 2000s, he built his brand equity with a regular appearance in all business channels as an expert with a behavioral finance touch. In 2009, he published his second book to accomodate more insights into Indian stock market. It was aptly called "Value Investing and Behavioral Finance" but the timing coincided with a juncture that saw most investors losing faith in Indian equities or even world equities. The book didn't fly off the shelves as anticipated but it became a much-cited book in the chronicles of the Indian Stock Market. Undeterrred, Parag Parikh continued his evangelism of the Holy Grails - Value Investing, Buffetism and Behavioral finance. His PMS now stands at around Rs.300 crores and sought out those who chase value and who understand greed and fear.

Parag's finest moment came with his decision to enter Asset Management Industry as a house without sales teams with himself and his team as the talking heads. He zeroed in on only one scheme with a tax-bias in favor of equity which commingled  equity investments in India and overseas equities like Google and IBM and some debt and arbitrage exposure. It seemed to have run better than PMS and now counts a little under Rs.600 crores - still a far cry from the behemothic assets managed by fund managers who have outgrown Buffetisms like Prashant Jain and Sankaren Naren. The fund also advertises that the "insiders" (or promoters and fund managers) have invested into ten per cent of the corpus of the scheme. This is hardly disclosed by most  houses. Parag Parikh's fund has delivered in the last one year an alpha of over 11 per cent over Sensex and over 7 per cent over the CNX 500. It is following a no-marketing approach to a fund that believes in buying fans on a cold day, ie. buying into stocks when the lemmings are headed the other way. Parag Parikh, in recent years, found company amongst many legendary investors in India who love the Value theme - Ramdeo Agarwal, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, Ramesh Damani. Few of them make an annual trip to the living God of Value Investing. It was like making a trip to Tirupati to make a Darshan of your Lord but alas! the devotee got killed after the special darshan. Some day, when Indian Stock Market grows from its $2 Trillion Market-cap to a level that the world notices, remember this Ayn Rand fan who talked about Investing without behavioral traps and gaps and pushed the tradition of Value Investing into wider currency. May his soul R.I.P. 

#Parag Parikh #ValueInvesting #BehavioralFinance #ValueInvestinginIndia #ThoughtleadersinIndianStockMarket #IndianStockMarket 

"Uthama Villain" (Telugu/Tamil) Movie Review

Kamal Hassan’s most-awaited movie already raised huge expectations with a five-star trailer and a once-in-a-lifetime starcast - of Nazar, Pooja Kumar, Jayaram, Urbashi, Andrea Jermea, Parvati Menon and the legendary directors K Balachander and K Vishwanath - two directors who gave the actor his coveted cult status and critical acclaim. It is quite an eponymous moment for Kamal Hassan to see such an ensemble fire as a film unit. But does it have anything to fire? Thats the question that haunts you throughout the 172 minute extravaganza. 

The story doesn’t add up to the standards of a Kamal film. Manoranjan is a superstar with a midas touch and a madcap following who is still remote-controlled by his father-in-law K Vishwanath. But Mano wants to do one last film with his mentor and director Margadarsi (K Balachander). He convinces his mentor to direct him with lot of emotional blackmail which turns out to be for a bona fide reason as we later understand. But Balachander doesn’t direct without a good story - that story is a leaf out of history, it resembles a routine Chandamama tale of a king treacherously murdered by his minister (Nazar) who becomes a king and wants to ensnare the king’s daughter Pooja Kumar. Somehow Kamal fakes a fatal illness with the help of his lady doctor in front of Balachander  and manages to convince him to wield the megaphone. Thats just one half of the story, the other half of the story is about Kamal’s aborted love affair before marriage and the love-child  born out of that relationship - which comes back to move him. There is another side of Kamal’s story - his official family of wife and son who are living their own lives of desperation without staying connected to Kamal. The story telling moves in tandem with these two characters  - of Kamal as a cine-star and Kamal as a historical character  who gets famous for coming out alive each time flirting with death. He becomes an instrument for Pooja Kumar to avenge the death of her father by killing Nazar. The story despite its dual time settings doesn’t have the depth and variety to sustain your attention even as the director Ramesh Arvind gives a visual feast with great music  by Ghibran.

Story and screenplay by Kamal himself hands it on a platter for Ramesh Arvind but the overall output is not entertaining for a biopic hyped beyond expectations. The treatment is casual, lacks the seriousness, entertainment, twists  and the methodicity associated with Kamal’s films with grip on story-telling, pace, and multi-dimensions of his own characters. Twenty minutes into the film which is but a film in an actual film (because Balachander’s film within the film itself is titled “Uthama Villain”) the narrative fizzles out- it is either Kamal the star doting on his children drifting away or in making it out with his doctor friend in a drunken state or it is back to Kamal the ballad artiste  egged on by a princess to checkmate Nazar. The ballads are the soul of the film, no doubt, giving a rich lift to the Thaiyam dance form. Ghibran’s  music is a highlight of the musical numbers sought in the song-and-dance format of the embedded film with mesmerising makeup of both Kamal, Pooja and Nazar. It has been axiomatic for Kamal to create a deviant spectrum of characterisation far-removed from a real-life character  played with  aplomb and the deviant spark  - in this case, Uthama character - wins the acclaim. 

Sure, it could have happened again but Kamal didn’t get it right this time in UV- it is either deadpan humour or a character which insinuates the dramatic personal life of Kamal Hassan  - the flip side of being known as a catnip among women. It is this autobiographical insinuation which fails to take us on an excursion that disconnects us from reality into a world of surreal histrionics. While the character of Uthama tugs at your heart, the Superstar character gets you uncomfortably close to the inner thoughts and feelings that could be troubling Kamal the Superstar in real life with a string of  failed marriages to a series of much-publicised affairs beginning with Sripriya and so on. Did Kamal who penned the dialogues for the film too anticipate an emotional upheaval with his audience - these thoughts distract your attention in an otherwise passable fare but requiring lots of patience and veneration-filled optimism for the consummate actor and his masterly mentors - K Balachander and K Vishwanath. While K Vishwanath peters out in his performance, Balachaner stands out in one last hurrah of a performance. Director Ramesh Arvind and Kamal make Balachander hog all the screen with a fiery performance and impressive lines. Whoever dubbed for Balachander in Telugu deserves kudos. There is a deliberate intent to show Balachander in leniency with Kamal throughout the film except the first shot when the latter approaches him for a film collaboration. What surprises us is that Balachander would have thoroughly disapproved of the plot within the main film - Uthama Villain because he likes arts and folk arts but not so much as to make a film out of a fairy tale. Balachander’s films were steeped in reality and middle-class values - this one had neither realism nor morals that the middle classes keep up with. But the most delectable part of the film is the precious relationship between KB and Kamal and the climax scene does bring out tears. If the film deserves a watch, it is for Balachander’s performance alone and not Kamal’s for a change. K Vishwanath on the other hand, gives a lackadaisical performance. He is unconvincing as a tough father-in-law who is a control freak with an overarching influence on Kamal. Both KB and KV scenes are rich with nostalgic photo frames showcasing some great moments with Kamal, Rajini, Sivaji, and even Vani Ganapathy with Kamal on their wedding day. 

What bores us, though,  is the mutual admiration society formed between the trio of Kamal, KB and KV. The moment sympathy for Kamal grows, the movie becomes a celebration of the legend that is Kamal as everybody bends over forwards to make him feel good and blessed. That part, this celebratory part is a botched opportunity for Ramesh Arvind - if only he could have used the presence of two national-award winning directors to give their two cents on the craft of film-making or the nuances of finer acting through Kamal, it  would have made for different viewing. But Alas, the movie continues in its one-dimensional tirade of father-children-wife affections and the ballads galore. Performances-wise Parvati Menon, Pooja Kumar and Andrea get their share of sizzle - for Andrea it is the last intimate scene in the car with three men travelling together including Kamal. For Parvati, atleast two scenes stand out. And for Pooja, it is the song “Kanuke Bondumalli/Kaadalaaan…” where she essays a well-rehearsed dancing performance. Urmila gives her melancholic best in the hospital scene. Nazar gives an off-beat performance as a scheming minister who is both stupid and wicked at times. He produces some unconventional comedy with Kamal - a feat that never happened in his previous films. 

Kamal does his best to best the film with his histrionics but a lot of scenes look contrived - including his opening duet with Pooja and the scenes with children. One scene with his son stands out as well as one or two comedy scenes with Nazar as an imbecile Minister. Technically, the film resonates with grandeur in music thanks to Ghibran, in cinematography and in set design and artworks. Despite all that, film doesn’t score high as an output that should be one of Kamal’s most-watched films. This is because of the fatal flaw in story selection, as already pointed, with a bias for autobiography and the deja vu characterisation of the superstar - nothing new and fresh in Kamal’s portrayal as a father who errs and repents (“Indrudu Chandrudu”), alcoholic (“Sagara Sangamam”), romantic (“Panchatantram” and “Sati Leelavati”). He didn’t push new boundaries in acting with this film in both the characters except in the make-up department (which has always been the brightest spots in his films). In this film, he has also attempted a lot of singing which might not have registered well with the audience - used to leading singers like SPB or Hariharan as playbacks. In the Telugu version, Kamal dubbed in  his own voice instead of SPB which shows that he is passionate and experimental - but this could have been done when he had seen better days not when the payoffs are huge now. It appears Kamal has stopped investing in stories that pulsate with scope for performance. Instead, he is choosing stories with flimsy characters and somehow fit like a larger china box in a smaller china box - this kind of approach has outlived its utility because the audience are tiring of Kamal’s antics moving on predictable grooves. For almost a decade now, Kamal did films in the genre of comedy  - effectively limiting his own charishma, making him a puppet with many other puppets on screen. Then he realised he should fire on all cylinders with roles like dime a dozen as in “Dashavataram”. It met with limited success but not the levels that shake the box office. In between, he picked successful remakes of Hindi or Malayalam films or acted in crime stories that made his producers reimburse fatter bills. But the soul of his performance is yet to return in more than a decade - and we are still awaiting that perfect moment. Instead, Kamal is seeking more pleasures in selecting unimaginative plots with devious digs at Vaishnavism, brahminism, terrorism and so on. Time for a refreshed study  of one’s potential and what one is actually  doing. Kamal Hassan’s latest film proves that having charisma, superstar persona, raising controversies  and hyping it up with a five-star trailer are not enough to deliver a wholesome visual extravaganza. “Uthama Villain”is not that Utham. But for Balachander’s arresting presence and performance, this film, despite the highs in art department and choreography and music slips into an average category of 2.5. KB gives it a notch better rating. Barely watchable otherwise.

Rating: 2.75/5

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