UDHAYAM NH4 ("IT'S HIGHWAY...FOR THE AUDIENCE")

April 19, 2013

Cast: Siddarth, Ashrita Shetty, Kay Kay Menon, Kishore.

Director: Manimaran.

Being directed by Vettri Maaran’s associate with the script written by Vettri Maaran himself, Udhayam NH4 comes from a juicy crew with a pretty good cast.

Rithika (Ashrita Shetty), the daughter of a politician, who studies in a college in Bangalore falls for her classmate Prabhu (Siddharth). After a dramatic turn of events she is forced to elope with Prabhu. Kay Kay menon who is an encounter specialist is asked to bring back Rithika to her father before she turns 18 the next day.

The film starts off with a glibly shot encounter scene and you would start getting doubts if your decision to come for the movie was right after all! Very soon you would be sure as hell that it was one of the most stupid decisions that you have ever taken in your life!

The screenplay written with the intention of being clever never really goes beyond the elementary level! The hero very easily keeps fooling the police and what more, even the cops look happy enough to play fools. Next it’s time for the audience to become fools when the hero and the cops start taking turns to fool each other! For instance, the hero leaves his cell phone in a dust bin to prevent the police from tracking him. Once he starts moving he sends a message from his friend’s mobile and ends up getting caught.

To make it so wonderfully sweet, the heroine who gets caught by Kay Kay Menon after a struggle all of a sudden starts telling her romantic story to him and the ruthless encounter specialist suddenly becomes an avid listener. By this time all you want to do is run out of the theatre screaming for help.

Coming to the dialogues department, it is really unfortunate to see such silly and cheesy dialogues coming from someone like Vettri Maaran. Barring one or two, the supporting actors and the heroine with weird accents (as a lot of them are not Tamilians in real life as well as in the film) and the last thing they could do being act, make your life miserable. To make it worse the dubbing and lip sync are a disaster!!

Manimaran has a long way to go as far as direction is concerned. His inability to extract performances from his cast is too apparent, even from actors as fine as Kay Kay Menon! The shabbily written and shot scenes between the lead pair have a fair chance of reminding you of the disastrous Twilight Saga chemistry between Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart.

The songs are nice and a few scenes are humorous but it’s highly doubtful if you would remember any of those by the time the ordeal comes to an end.

Iam giving a 1/5 for Udhayam NH4. If the director tells you it’s either his way or the highway, you would be better off taking the highway even in this summer heat!!

Rating Scale (Out of 5)

Less than 2                   -           Unwatchable.

2 to 2.25                      -           Below average.

2.5 to 2.75                   -           Average.

3 to 3.25                      -           Good.

3.5 to 3.75                   -           Really Good.

4 to 4.25                      -           Great.

4.5 and above               -           Extraordinary.

                                                                    

GAURAVAM ("NOTHING TO BE PROUD ABOUT")

April 19, 2013

Cast: Allu Sirish, Yami Gautam, Prakash Raj.

Director: Radha Mohan.

When you talk about honour killings to a filmgoer it’s natural if the raw, intense “Mississippi Burning” and it’s equally good Indian version “Aakrosh” come to his mind. But does Gauravam belong to the same league? Not at all!

Set in T. Vennur (a village in Tamilnadu), Gauravam talks about the story of Allu Sirish who comes in search of his classmate Shanmugam ( from a lower caste family) who is believed to have eloped with his girlfriend (from an upper caste family). Prakashraj plays the role of the girlfriend’s father. Nobody in the village, including Prakashraj and Shanmugam’s father, knows about the couple’s whereabouts. Allu Sirish and his friend, along with the help of Lawyer Yaazhini (Yami Gautam), the daughter of a local Communist leader, set out to find Shanmugam and his girlfriend.

If you have already watched “Mississippi Burning” or “Aakrosh” you right away understand the plot, but even otherwise it would not take the average viewer long to figure it out, courtesy the lazy, lacklustre and naive screenplay by Radhamohan. The screenplay is so amateurish that you would not find even a single tense scene in the movie! There is no scope for jokes in a movie of this genre and the bad ones forced into the screenplay are made worse by Allu Sirish who is stone faced most of the time.

The cast consists of a couple of Radhamohan regulars who do a good job. But it’s the actors who have played the role of Shanmugam’s father and his girlfriend’s sister-in-law, though very limited in screenspace, who outshine the rest of the cast. Sadly there are no characters like that of Gene Hackman and Willen Dafoe (in Mississippi Burning) or Ajay Devgan, Akshaye Khanna and Paresh Rawal(in Aakrosh), fiery enough to give you the thrills!Even the antagonists never looking menacing or dangerous.

An amusing yet confusing thing about Radhamohan is his tryst with Punjabis. Yes, you have a Punjabi in this movie as well who plays Allu Sirish’s friend!

The cinematography is so inconsistent that you would wonder if there were two Directors of Photography working. When some scenes are nothing short of visual beauty others look like cheap camera print.

Most of the events that look to good to be true unfold at regular intervals as if they were programmed. Certain scenes are so naively thought about and executed that you will burst out into laughter at the silliness. Towards the end there are a few “so called” discoveries and twists that fall flat on the face! With a lot of gratuitous characters and scenes Gauravam feels longer than it’s runtime of 2 hrs 16 minutes.

Iam giving a 2/5 for Gauravam. It’s clear that Radhamohan has stepped onto a genre that he has no clue about!

Rating Scale (Out of 5)

Less than 2                   -           Unwatchable.

2 to 2.25                      -           Below average.

2.5 to 2.75                   -           Average.

3 to 3.25                     -           Good.

3.5 to 3.75                  -           Really Good.

4 to 4.25                     -           Great.

4.5 and above              -           Extraordinary.