Sunday, April 21, 2013

Udhayam - Watch out for Pot Holes


There are lots of factors that could change an individual’s view about a movie. It could be due to the incidents that he saw in his own life, poor screenplay what he presume, funny dialogues or ultra mokkai, could be purely you hate the lead’s performance in some other movies, casting choices that he may not like etc., The reason could be anything. Hence, I would like to clear the bottom line that its not necessary that a review or a personal opinion or whatever is  100% correct and most importantly you can not generalize a REVIEW.

There is no defined metrics to measure the quality of a movie. For an actor, a movie is good if the lead got awards. For a director, it could be apt screenplay or detailing. For a producer, it could be the collections or market pulling factors. I don’t put such huge disclaimers but I want to register my personal opinion (which has a probability = 1 to be 100% wrong) with out offending any of my readers : ) ( evalooo pikkaali thanam panna vendi irukku)

My friend and I went for the first day show in Satyam. The movie supposed to start at 1 but only started at 2 that pissed me off. I assume its because of some VIP’s delays. I looked myself jackass typing this sentence but can not help : ) I really wanted to see a recent tamil movie where director does only direction with out getting in to any other department. In this case, since the director is vetrimaran’s former assistant (and the fact being Vetrimaran himself is a successfully director and story-screenplay writer of Udhayam), I am not sure if the director did his job with out any ones intervention.



The movie is clearly for A center audience. Infact, I had a feeling that this movie is intended for those special audience who thinks they can digest and understand any complicated screenplay. I don’t mean any sarcasm here, this indeed is a good strategy, the trailer said all about the class of the movie and I am prepared for the treat that I expected and as expected, I got what I looked for ; )

Before getting in to positive side (since I wanted to end up praising the movie) let me list down few flip sides when I looked as a common man (I, anyway am)


- The heroine looked very ordinary given the rich feel of the movie but she managed quiet well I believe

- The dubbing is horrible at its best. Kay Kay and the heroine lost in translation in many places (I wish some one proves me wrong)

- Songs (though nice) were speed breakers in the national highway

- Noticed few logical flaws were intentionally created to entertain wider audience (For ex., Made an absolute intelligent Kay Kay Menon as a clear dumb when he noticed the names in railway reservation list and blindly believed they would be there catching the train) but I guess the strategy (of film crew) worked well ; )

- Predictable second half was a big let down. Screenplay did failed to engage for last 15-20 minutes as the climax was almost known. This is purely because of the genius thatz been shed out in the first half.

Wokay, I am happy I dished out the negatives. Here are the nice ones

- The tamil accent of the heroine is so apt rather cute. Its typical Bangalore tamil

- The BGM is absolutely a just. Mind blowing.

- Kay Kay Menon, whiff of fresh air to Tamil cinema. He did all it takes .. Effortless.

- First half, reminded Pollathavan few places due to changing narration but admirable

- Comedy part from lesser known faces and still evoked laughter

- The shoot locations are just the places required

- The detailing in many places (For ex., when Kay Kay Menon was talking over phone in railway station the irrelevant characters around the scene also have performed) I believe this is obvious when director does just direction so he can concentrate on those minute details.

In Summary, this is a good watch for Tamil cinema lovers who always bash the run-on-the-mill movies. However, only one time watch.

 


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