Kirubhakar Purushothaman

Apart from moral ambivalence, the commonality of all Nalan Kumarasamy’s feature film protagonists is that they are aware of being so. Daas of Soodhu Kavvum can’t resist being a kidnapper. He understands the risks and therefore adopts a ‘middle path’ by finding non-violent ways to go about his business. Ka Ka Po’s Kathiravan is a paper tiger who has served time for crimes he never committed. He strives hard to let go of his past, which is not even his.

James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash picks up things where the second part, Avatar: The Way of Water, left us. Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), the second son of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), is ridden with the guilt of being the reason for the death of his elder brother Neteyam (Jamie Flatters). Even Sully seems to blame him for the loss; he even spells it out, giving the necessary redemption arc to Lo’ak, who continues to defy orders — just like his father from the first part.

Abel Donovan (Suresh Gopi) asks the victim of a brutal sexual assault, Janaki V (Anupama Parameswaran), “Do you watch porn?" Almost everyone in the court and in the theatre is supposed to be shocked by that question, which seems to be the point of it. The idea here is to invoke a similar dramatic intrigue as in a scene from Pink, where Deepak Sehgal (Amitabh Bachchan) asks Minal Arora, “Are you a virgin?" The question in Pink is justified, as Deepak intends to bring about the irrelevance of it in the context of consent. However, here the scene is exactly for all the wrong reasons. Debutant director Pravin Narayanath, who has also written the film, has intended to create an enigmatic protagonist and a sense of shock value by having a protagonist saving the wrong person in Janaki V Vs State Of Kerala. To put it more precisely, David Abel Donovan is the Devil’s advocate, literally! While it sounds like a brilliant idea, the film fails to bring it to fruition.

Any film that begins with a narrator introducing the hero immediately raises a suspicion. If cliches are alphabets, it is A. Oh Enthan Baby kicked off with Vishnu Vishal’s (who has played an extended cameo) narration introducing his brother Rudra as Ashwin, and the dutiful brother also preps us that the film is about three of his romances in different stages in life. As you get ready for further such datedness, director Krishnakumar Ramakumar manages to surprise you. The first surprise came in the form of scenes parodising Vijay and Ajith Kumar. It was bold and funny, and I was piqued. While there were no such risks again as the film followed many of the rom-com tropes, it managed to be enjoyable, thanks to the director’s nonchalant and self-aware treatment of a rather tested story.

Director Ezhil captured a particular sense of humour with his films Desinguraja and Velainu Vandhutta Vellaikaaran, where the villain and the conflict have no serious bearing on the film. The plot or the semblance of such is just a device to hold together a series of gags with eccentric characters that had a decent hit rate. Ravi Maria’s Bhootham and Robo Shankar’s MLA Jacket Janakiraman climactic scene in Velainu Vandhutta Vellaikaaran is the pinnacle of the success of such humour. Ezhil, naturally, has attempted to emulate the same with his new outing Desinguraja 2, which has backfired. The reason could be that the latest doesn’t seem to have even the wafer thin plots his previous ventures had. Also, the humour here is tasteless and desperate leaving you with a bad aftertaste.

This is the kind of movie that is made with the certainty that it would strike a chord with the middle class and their struggles. “Nalla relate aagum" (It would be very relatable) would have been the feedback about the film at every stage of its making. The bet is all on creating the feeling in the viewer that one is seen, heard or represented. By doing so, filmmaker Sri Ganesh portrays the life of the class as nothing but struggle, stripped of any joy, and the viewer feels the same. 3BHK is the story of a father named Vasudevan (Sarathkumar), struggling to buy his own house. However, every time he gets closer to his dream, the finish line moves further. The entire family is on a mission to buy a 3BHK and move out of their rented house in a cramped complex. A chart is stuck on the living room wall with the goal amount for their dream. Vasudevan’s son Prabhu (Siddharth) faces financial pressure, making him fail in his academic pursuits. Despite his relentless efforts, he manages to clear his board exams only with ‘just pass’ marks. A management seat in a reputed engineering college for Prabhu costs the family more years to reach their goal. Then it’s a heart attack, then the wedding of Vasudevan’s daughter Aarthy (Chaithra), and then something else. By then, we understand the film’s intent and where it is heading.

Vasan (Nagarajan Kannan), an egotistical writer with a god complex, makes a living by writing stories for a small magazine. He avoids mainstream magazines, citing the lack of freedom. Even his magazine’s editor (Delhi Ganesan) calls magazine stories a dying art. But Vasan is adamant and relentless. His resolve is also seen in his writing and his choice of creating tragic stories where the oppressed and people on the fringes of society get tortured. Parallel to Vasan’s narrative, we get three other narratives, and it takes a while to understand that the three stories are by Vasan. One is about a gangster, Dhanapal (Sai Dheena), on the precipice of finishing his 50th murder assignment. The second one has Selvi (Aishwarya Raghupathi), a domestic worker struggling to make money for her son’s school fees, and the third is another tragic tale of an aspiring doctor, the daughter of a poor farmer, who doesn’t have the means to attempt the NEET exam. All three stories teem with archetypal tropes of poverty and oppression that cater to a particular gaze of society. Vasan has an air of superiority while weaving their stories of torture, but his characters start tormenting him, demanding he write more responsibly. He claims his characters are after his life, and thus begins a maze of a story where the lines of reality blur.

Kolai, Raththam, Mazhai Pidikathavum Manidhanum, Hitler… after such a barrage of misses, a sense of prejudice is expected to set in when Vijay Antony comes up with another crime thriller. But a few minutes into the film, Maargan assures you that the streak will be broken. It exhibits good craftsmanship despite ticking all the boxes of genre films and treads carefully without breaching the territory of clichés. To top it all, it sets up an engrossing supernatural premise involving Siddhars and astral projections that effortlessly win you over. Tamil cinema tends to get overly didactic and self-congratulatory when it ventures into such themes of ancient knowledge. However, Leo John Paul’s success lies in the way he effortlessly sells you his ruse. The trick, after all, is not to convince you to believe but to entertain enough that you don’t mind. To give the context, Maargan is an investigation thriller where an archetypical resigned police officer, Dhruv (Vijay Antony), takes up a case that looks similar to the murder of his daughter. A Chennai girl, on her birthday, is murdered by an unknown killer using a chemical cocktail which, when injected, burns the body from the inside, turning it black. Dhruv takes over the case unofficially and arrests a suspect named Tamilarivu (Ajay Dishan), a brilliantly written role. As Tamil is subjected to police interrogation, it is realised that he is innocent but has supernatural abilities that would aid the investigation. With his astral projection abilities, he puts himself at risk of finding the killer, which also turns out to be an effective surprise.