Avinash Ramachandran

Sundar C is a rather enigmatic filmmaker who understands the kind of nuanced conversations around cinema on social media, and still makes a film that would invariably be contentious in such a space. In fact, in a recent interview, Sundar C said that his films don’t have a lot of bloodshed, voyeuristic camera angles, double-meaning dialogues, and glamour for the sake of it. But then, Gangers is like an antithesis to his belief system as the film has bloodshed, voyeuristic camera angles, double-meaning dialogues, glamour for the sake of it, and… oodles of humour that salvages the film whenever it dips into unsavoury territories.

The first time you meet Yoshinori Tashiro in Shiva’s latest film, Sumo, he is wearing a mawashi, the outfit worn by Sumo wrestlers. Apparently, he washed up the shores of Chennai, and has the mental makeup of a 1.5-year-old child. And somehow, that means, the wrestler’s only focus is to satiate his tremendous appetite. He finds an immediate connection with Shiva (Shiva) because… well, you need a reason for the movie to move on, and they didn’t find anything else to do. Willing suspension of disbelief, anyone? After this point, we are asked to willingly suspend our disbelief on multiple occasions, and we would have done exactly that if the film didn’t abruptly shift tones in every second scene to thrust a sense of reality in the world of absurdity.

Serial killer films are mosty about unmasking the killer and unravelling the reason behind the killings. And then there are films where you know the killer’s identity right from the first scene, and it is all about how they are brought to justice. And then there is Sivaprasad’s Maranamass which tells us about the killer, his modus operandi, and his targets. There is no ‘surprise’ in what happens in the life of this serial killer who has a method to his madness of stuffing a banana in the mouth of his victims. Of course, the identity of the serial killer, played to perfection by Rajesh Madhavan, is known to the audience, and yet… we are invested in what happens. Why? Because the makers of Maranamass fill the narrative with eclectic characters who have individual arcs, and quirks.

Agnyathavasi is the last film where you’d expect an objectifying number finding itself in the narrative. This is a slow-burn drama set in the idyllic Malnad region. This is set in the late 90s, and features an ageing inspector, a much-older retired postmaster, a lot of conversations about parenting and farming, and a murder. So it doesn’t make sense that Agnyathavasi features a song that objectifies, literally. And the object in question is a computer… the first one to arrive at the village. The way the camera caresses the curvature of the monitor, the first time it is switched on, the first time the keyboard is used… there is so much focus on the computer, which is going to change the fate of a few people. But they don’t know it yet. And the best part? We don’t either.

At one point in Good Bad Ugly, Ajith Kumar breaks the fourth wall to directly interact with director Adhik Ravichandran behind the camera. There is no precedence for such a style of filmmaking before and after this scene, and it is a random outlier in a film that revels in its nonchalance and throwing caution to the wind. This scene might not necessarily fit into the story about a gangster-in-exile returning to his old ways to save his son. However, Adhik treats Good Bad Ugly with so much irreverence that this is the least of the outlandish aspects of the film. There is a cameo and a throwback that comes out of nowhere. But we’ll get there in a while.

Robinhood movie review: Director Venky Kudumula loves making films that have a simple premise, a convincing lead, enjoyable songs, and a convoluted narrative seamlessly tied together with a lot of laughs. In his latest, Robinhood, all of these are in place, but with the laughs not enough, and the ambitious narrative not being supported by the writing, Venky’s dreamy house of cards crashes down. Remember Ravi Teja-Surender Reddy’s Kick? The film that was about a do-gooder thief who tries his best to outwit the system and a tough-as-nails cop, and serve the needy by robbing from the rich. The same film was remade in Tamil with Ravi Mohan, Kannada with Upendra, and Hindi with Salman Khan. Did you ever think what would happen if Nithiin starred in the rehash of the 2009 film? No, right? Neither did many others, but Venky had other plans, and he mixes elements of yet another Telugu film that Salman Khan remade in 2011 — Ready.

In many ways, Veera Dheera Sooran is director SU Arun Kumar’s version of Lokesh Kanagaraj’s Kaithi. The entire film unfolds during a single night, and builds towards an important event that must take place at sunrise. There is a gang on the run, and hunting them is a police officer with a plan. There is a sense of urgency. There are chases, fights, and violence. And then… there’s a weapon of mass destruction waiting to be unleashed. And yet, Veera Dheera Sooran is as distinct a film as Kaithi. How beautiful is it that similar stories can look and feel so different because of a filmmaker’s style and vision, and of course… the actor’s stardom?

There is a quaint Christian fishing hamlet. There is a raging sea at their footsteps. The villagers haven’t gone fishing in their waters for over two decades. Every single person who has gone out to the sea has come back dead. There is a curse. There is a reasoning. There are overarching themes involving regret, retribution, and redemption. There is a romance track that, thankfully, exists in the periphery. There is a to-and-fro between timelines that moves from the 80s to the 2020s to the 2010s to the 60s to the 80s, and you know the drill. There are multiple backstories for each principal player of this story. There is a folklore. There is a fantasy element, and then… there’s a sea creature. And yet, for the longest time, GV Prakash Kumar‘s latest film, Kingston, seems to move nowhere, and this proves to be the film’s biggest undoing.