Unnale Unnale -- Movie Review

The cinematographer turned director Jeeva impressed me with his first directorial venture '12B' with its amazing screenplay, brilliant photography & interesting music. Even though I didn't get to see his second directorial venture (Ullam Ketkume), the general review that I got was that it was also an interesting movie. This had my expectation soaring and with the music becoming very popular even before the release of the movie, I was very interested in watching this movie.Did the director meet the expectations?

What would happen if a director reads the books "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus", "Why men don't listen and women can't read maps" and decides to make a movie out of them? You would probably end up with something similar to the story of this movie. Men & women, being different from each other, find it tough to get along with each other smoothly and the hero & heroine of the movie are no exceptions to this universal rule. If that is the case, what keeps this whole world running? The director wanted to suggest that it is the ubiquitous "Love" that keeps the world spinning. The way he goes about narrating this had my head spinning for sure!!!

Some of the scenes involving the hero and his two friends(In the first half) are directly taken from the hindi movie "Dil Chaata Hai". Another scene involving the Hero and the second heroine (Which incidentally is the sister of Kajol), according to my friend, is a lift from another hindi movie "Hum Tum". Even with these irritants, the director succeeds in giving a very hilarious and gripping first half. The first half is so slick that before you know it, the interval slide comes up on screen. Then something goes terribly wrong with the movie and the only plausible reason that I could think of is that director must have lost his story and screenplay after completing the movie till this point. With just the theme left, he tries very hard to move the movie to a reasonable conclusion and he fails pathetically in that attempt.

What if the 'Director' Jeeva fails to turn up in this movie? The 'Cinematographer' Jeeva turns up with his entourage and leaves you spellbound by his work. Is Australia really this beautiful? Is it heaven on earth? With his camera work, Jeeva makes everyone believe it is that way. The photography is pleasant and sits nicely in the eyes. Another factor that has helped the movie still stay in the theaters is the music. Harris Jeyaraj has come up with some really good songs & the background score peppered with short & sweet songs are really the assets of this otherwise insipid movie.

A movie review without a mention of the hero & the two heroines and their performances? The characters are wafer thin and the story offers no scope for these people to showcase their histrionic talents (or the lack of it). Tanisha(Sister of Kajol) is probably the only one who has some scope for acting and she has done a decent job. With a strong storyline, she can be expected to go places in the tinsel world.

Last Cut: This is probably one of those movies which had a great start and then failed to capitalize on the raised expectations. It falls so much short on the raised expectations that you leave the movie with a disappointment that takes a few hours to wear off. If you are a person who doesn't worry about the story/screenplay, watch this movie just for the songs & photography.

Rating: 5/10