Introduction: Gautham is one of those highly rated directors well known for his distinct style of movie making. With all his previous ventures (Minnale, Kaaka Kaaka, Vettayadu Villayaadu) proving to be great grossers, will he prove that he is no ordinary flash-in-the-pan and that he is here to stay & change the way movies are made in tamil?Story: When the 6-year old son of Venkatesh(Sarath Kumar) and Kalyani(Andrea) is identified with diabetes, the life of Venkatesh takes a turn. With Kalyani very much worried about their son's health and spending most of her time with their son, the marital life of Venkatesh suffers. This is when Geetha(Jyothika), a married woman working in ABN AMRO Bank, enters the life of the hero. With a relationship bordering on extra-marital affairs which both Venkatesh & Geetha realize, the story takes yet another turn when they both decide to spend a day in a beach resort. What happens in the beach resort & the repercussions of all these forms the rest of the story.
Performances: As expected, the best performance comes from Jyothika. Jyothika seems to have all the emotions in her repertoire and it comes of brilliantly on screen. Sarath Kumar shows that emoting comes as naturally as doing the fight sequences. Here he does both with elan. Milind Soman(He plays the villain) does his role to perfection without much ado. Andrea is probably the weakest link among the lead roles and it is one of the sour points of the movie.
Other aspects: One of the first things that needs to be appreciated is the number of close-up shots that the director has used with his lead characters. To be able to use this many close-up shots is to believe in the acting talents of his lead actors and barring Andrea, the others have done justice to Menon's trust on them. The camera by Arvind Krishna is pleasing and allows the movie to smoothly flow. The screenplay is tight enough to maintain the viewer's interest & the only place where the movie disappoints is in the final 20 minutes where the director seems confused on the way he needs to finish the movie. The way the song "Unn Siripinil" is pictured very much similar to the song "Partha Mudhal Naale" from "Vettayadu Villayadu" and could have been avoided.
The music by Harris Jeyaraj is astounding, to say the least. With all the songs hugely popular already, the background music also proves as an asset to the movie. The editing is crisp except for one particular place in the movie where it seemed to have jumped to the next shot without finishing the previous one. Pay good attention to the sets in the background for the song "Kaadhal Konjam". The paintings in the background are so real that it would be easy to assume that the song was taken outside than in a set.
Final Cut: The movie needs to be appreciated for the Hollywood like film-making in general and for usage of the close-up shots in particular. If not for the shoddy finish, this movie would have set a new standard in tamil movie making.
Rating: 6.5/10
2 comments:
Hey ! I heard that the film is a complete rip off a English Movie named "Derailed" which actually did not do well at US Box Office. I have not seen it though. Guess will watch it for why it has been remade. Apart from that, I did not read the "story" part since I want to see it for myself. Nice Review !
Ashok,
According to Gautham, he used the book of the same name to make the tamil movie & not the english movie. I have not watched the english version but my friend says that it had great performances by the lead cast (Jennifer Aniston & someone else)
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