Virus (2019) - Malayalam Movie Review

What happens when a bunch of truly talented artists comes together to tell the tale of some real-life heroes and sheroes? Brilliantly crafted and realistically narrated movie like Virus will be its creation, one can undoubtedly say.

By far the best of Aashiq Abu’s career, Virus skilfully stages the anxiety-inducing moments of the Nipah virus outbreak that happened in Kozhikode and Malappuram districts of Kerala. Instead of over-dramatization of real events, writers Muhsin Parari, Suhas and Sharfu chose to painstakingly research the incidents and construct a script so gripping that in spite of knowing all about it, you will find yourself at the edge of your seat.

Keeping the central character as Nipah, director Aashiq Abu, carefully and compassionately unfolds the plot under the masterful cinematography by Rajeev Ravi, with additional support provided by Shyju Khalid. Brilliant editing by Saiju Sreedharan and riveting music by Sushin Shyam adds the cherry on top.

No unnecessary diversions, over glorification of characters or any kind of efforts to milk a tragedy of such magnitude, Virus instead focusses on a bunch of imperfect normal human beings who rose to the occasion; some who fought the battle and lived to tell the tale and some who bravely fought but are not with us anymore. 

Virus is filled with moments which will touch your heart, like the helpless mother’s question about whether everyone hates her son who apparently was the source for the spread of virus or the letter sister Akhila left for her husband.

To bring together a stellar cast and technical crew to pull of such a survival medical thriller is not an easy job. Aashiq Abu and team successfully ensembled the multi- starrer with some of the best of talents from the industry. From Babu, a hospital helper (an exceptional Joju George), to a senior health official Baburaj (Indrajith Sukumaran), big or small, each character had a role to play and unlike other multi starrers, the artists were not competing with each other for space but did their respective parts with confidence, making Virus a truly artistic creation and stands as a testament to the community who fought the battle.  Infact Virus brings many of the stars out of their regular typecast roles, like Kunchako Boban as Dr. Suresh Rajan different from the stereotypical roles he has been playing and Sreenath Bhasi who got into the skin of the medical professional Dr. Abid, effortlessly.

Virus will make you proud, firstly for the courage, we displayed to stand together and fight such a deadly outbreak from identification to its total annihilation and second for the amount of talent which shines through in all aspects of this film, making it a milestone in the history of Malayalam Cinema.

While I write this review or while you are watching the movie, Kerala is on the battleground once again having a face to face with the deadly virus. But just like what the movie conveys, we have won the battle once, we will fight it again, together.

Spread knowledge, not fear.

#Fear #Fight #Survival #Virus

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Picture Courtesy: IMDb, Firstpost, Youtube

Kalank

Can Bollywood please leave the job of creating epic period dramas to the experts at the job? 

Guess not. Abhishek Varman is that friend in the exam we all meet, who even after given the entire cheat sheet to a problem, messes up the answer by wasting time in the beautification and elaboration and thus ultimately misses the point. From the first song sequence of “Odhni”, Kalank explicitly starts giving you déjà vu of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s creations, but only a bad one at it.

What Abhishek or Dharma productions is yet to understand is that Bhansali’s epics are the result of complete passion, intense storytelling, heightened emotions  and  most importantly surrendered madness with flamboyant backdrops. There are no stained realities in Bhansali’s world neither are there any safe surface level attempts; so if you are so obviously deciding to recreate that magic, then at least be fair to it.

For me, Kalank was a visual treat, just like any Bhansali productions. And how can it not be? Kalank’s cinematography is done by Binod Pradhan who worked with Bhansali to create Devdas. Along with it, the production design by Amrita Mahal Nakai just made it a splendid visual treat.  

The passage to Bahaar Begum’s Kota is mesmerizing just like the castles and costumes by Manish Malhotra, Maxima Basu, and Ajay Kmr. The problem with Kalank is the same; they have taken painstakingly intense efforts in setting up the story milieu and did a lazy job creating characters with layers and a plot worth rooting for.

The major reason why Bhansali’s grandeur way of storytelling works is because of the insanely intense performance by his actors.  It’s also evident that along with the actors’ talent its Sanjay’s passion that creates the magic onscreen.  What Abhishek lacks in Kalank is also the same, that fire or passion that automatically will transform the characters out of the actors. All the characters created and the plot did have a lot of scope to have been developed into an epic drama about the complicated human lives. But sadly story writer Shibani Bhathija, screenplay writer Abhishek or dialogue writer Hussain Dalal was hardly interested in it.

I was so relieved that Alia Bhatt was finally given characters with so much caliber that she can handle a whole movie on her shoulders if need be. Unfortunately, Alia as Roop in Kalank hardly is able to give her best due to the underwritten surface level role given to her. 

Same is the case with otherwise bankable actors Madhuri Dixit as ‘Bahaar Begum’ or Sanjay Dutt as ‘Balraj Chaudhry’. They all seemed uncomfortable and painfully one toned. Maybe it's just me but it was disturbing to see Madhuri’s expressions fall flat in many instances in the song sequences or in an intense moment of outburst in the movie. 

After Badlapur and October, Varun Dhawan luckily is given a complex character as Zafar, probably the only character in the movie who was given justifiable effort crafting. Zafar is not the easily likable character but Varun successfully threads on the blurred lines of right and wrong as Zafar and gives an earnest performance.

Aditya Roy Kapur’s sober existence as Dev Choudhry throughout the first half was a relief but sadly once again his was also reduced to a one-note role, probably due to which the second half shows him drinking out his sorrows (which has almost become a sure thing in Aditya’s movies). Sonakshi Sinha as ‘Satya’ manages to convince as too much of a sanskaari wife. Although I don’t understand how forcefully getting your husband to marry someone against both their wills is actually love.

Somebody, please give Kunal Khemu more meaty roles. He enacted Abdul’s short yet pivotal role with so much passion that ‘bande ne aag laga di’ almost literally. He is hugely promising and it’s criminal to let him be trapped in the horrific ‘Rohit Shetty world’.  

Apart from the title track, beautifully choreographed ‘Ghar More Pardesiya’ and ‘Tabaah Ho Gayi’, none of the other tracks by Pritam felt like worth it, though background score by Sanchit and Ankit Balhara was just what the movie needed.

The movie drags on with unnecessary male lead bonding with “Chikni Chameli” type item numbers, in-authentically recreated political turmoil from the 1940s India, shirtless ab displays, random bullfights with pathetic CGIs and after all this for almost three hours later, you will hardly be able to root for the climax moment, which was intense but consumed by its own exhaustion.

Picture Courtesy: IMDb, boldoutline, Bookmyshow

Super Deluxe

Super Deluxe is one such movie which makes it hard for a reviewer to review, not because it’s bad but since it’s so very well made that one remains speechless after the movie. I haven’t seen director Thiagarajan Kumararaja’s last outing Aaranyakandam (2011) and went in for Super Deluxe without any escalated hopes. In a phase where movie makers chose to tell almost the entire story of the movie through the trailer, Super Deluxe’s trailer kept me guessing and intrigued in so many ways and that’s the sole reason why I decided to watch the movie and trust me if I hadn’t, it would have been a huge loss.

The beauty of this movie is the precision and passion with which it is created; from an intriguing trailer to intricately designed posters to a brilliantly crafted movie, Super Deluxe never disappoints you. In an era of monotonously one toned characters, Thiagarajan’s world offers an entire story and characters are presented with extreme detailing and depth. Super Deluxe cannot be categorized as of one genre as it touches almost every aspect of life like life, morality, sex, gender discrimination, marriage, politics and what not and in a fascinatingly clever manner.

Just like the layered storytelling, each and every character has given us captivating performances. Before I go into any one of them, personally for me the star of the movie is Raasukutty, played by the endearing Ashwanth. With his adorable mannerisms, he takes you through the yearning and unconditional love for his father. He doesn’t give a damn about the world or its stereotypes; he doesn't care if his father is a man or woman. 

All he wants is his father, who came back after years changed as a woman, to stay back and his way of dealing with a trans person is an eye-opener for all of us. Raasukutty’s highly exasperated and emotional dialogue, “Nee ponbalayavo ambulayaavo irinthitu poo aanal enka koode iruthu tholaye” (You be a woman or a man, however it is, stay with us) is certainly going to haunt you even out of the theatre.

Vijay Sethupathi again proves his caliber in his portrayal of Shilpa, a trans woman refusing to be apologetic about the decision she took but haunted by the ghosts of the past and equally stumped by the unconditional love of her son. The extent of dedication Sethu puts into each character is evident in the transformation he goes through and Shilpa is no different. Sethu makes sure from the intro that one roots for Shilpa and her life.

Though not given too much screen time another character who made an impact for me was Gayathrie Shankar as Jyothi, Vijay Sethupathi’s wife. Her plight of longing and happiness about the estranged husband’s return, disbelief and utter shock of the transformation he went through and the breakdown realizing her repeated misfortunes is brilliantly portrayed in fewer words and intense expressions. Her dialogue, “Naanum oruvela April fool nu nenachen theriyuma” (Even I thought for a moment that you were playing an April Fool prank) looking at her husband busy draping a saree, is another dialogue which will hurt. 

Samantha Akkineni in a recent interview with Baradwaj Rangan said, her aim from now on is to do roles which she can be proud of. Well, with Vaembu she can safely say, she did open her account. Vaembu, the headstrong woman unapologetic about her sexual desires is by far the best performance of her career.

It was a pleasure to watch Ramya Krishnan back on screen with an impactful performance.  A doting mother, a badass woman, an actor who once used to act as goddess, now working in the porn industry to make a living, Ramya Krishnan made the character of Leela, memorable with her acting prowess.

Fahad Faasil as Mugil gives us another terrific performance; with his portrayal of Mugil’s emotions from shock to unaddressed frustrations, this actor proves he is a gem. His monologue with the corpse of his wife’s ex-lover is something one can never forget and director’s addition of a tinge of black humor here and there makes it hilarious at different levels.  

An eccentric character Arpudam aka Dhanasekar (played by Mysskin, also of the four writers of the movie including Nalan Kumarasamy, Neelan K.Sekhar, and Kumararaja) plays brilliantly with the rights and wrongs and lines blurred in between with regards to our belief systems. 

The transformation of Bagavathi Perumal as Berlin, one of the evilest cope I have seen in Tamil cinema recently, was a huge leap to take and what a perfect execution! The director literally pushes the edge so far with each character that you are left with no choice than to live the life with the characters and emotionally root for them.

This is one such rare movie which respects the audiences’ emotions and intelligence quotient; nowhere ideologies or viewpoints or humor is spoon-fed to you. In fact, most of the scenes in the movie are so open-ended that this movie can be perceived in different ways by different people. Still, for sure you will walk out of the theatre with most of your perceived notions and stereotypes disturbed.   

Picture Courtesy: Filmibeat, Film Companion South

Gully Boy

                                      

                                “Tu nanga hi toh aaya hai, kya ghanta lekar jaayega?”

Only a handful of Bollywood movies have so far made me go W.O.W and Gully Boy took it to next level. I haven’t seen in a long while, a theatre packed with people so engrossed in the movie, reacting to it or its characters like they are also simultaneously living the story depicted. Gully Boy is indeed one of the best that Bollywood owns till date and has successfully restored my faith in the industry.

A typical rags to stardom underdog story with so many narratives running parallel is an easy disaster recipe usually for Bollywood, but under Zoya’s skillful direction, powerful and layered storytelling of Reema Kagti co-written with Zoya, hard-hitting dialogues by Vijay Maurya and as always the gem of an actor, Ranveer Singh’s spectacular performance, Zoya’s masterpiece has set the bar so high for 2019 or even for Bollywood in general.

We have known many movies which usually run on the shoulders of the central characters or the story, but Gully Boy is a spectacle where each character is equally important and owns different layers along with a captivating storyline. Not just the characters, but the storytelling to the music, everything is so skilfully integrated with one another.

Ranveer Singh effortlessly sinks into the skin of the character Murad and his struggles to rise above his life conditions, inspired loosely by the experiences of real-life Mumbai street rappers Naezy and Divine. One cannot but root for his constant conflicts between the claustrophobic space he inhabits and chasing a dream which he is not even sure he deserves but holds on to it, as the desire for music just refuses to burn down. Ranveer is by now known for his attitude to go an extra mile to justify the role he plays and his honesty in doing so is clearly evident in his portrayal of Murad too. Utter despair from the constraints of his circumstances to pure passion for rap music, Ranveer’s face brilliantly conveys the core emotions.

Ranveer is equally balanced by an outstanding performance by Alia Bhatt, who is just getting better with each movie. The chemistry between them is flawless and their relationship is one of the few best that Bollywood ever captured. Alia’s character Safeena is relatable to every woman in India who has been brought up in restrictive environments and becomes natural rebels overly possessed over any little happiness they own.

              

Let it be the freedom to pursue education seriously or be it the boyfriend from childhood, she holds onto those little things as dearly as possible, because she has to be in a constant fight with her own family to an entire world to get even the smallest of happiness. Alia’s moment where she explains to her parents that how she will never lie again if at all they let her be like any other girl of her age is the pleading of every girl in the country. Her feisty, rebellious and adorable energy is just amazing and a pleasure to watch on screen.

Along with the central characters, Gully Boy is packed with incredible performances by Vijay Verma, Siddhant Chaturvedi, Vijay Raaz, and Amruta Subhash. Vijay Varma, shined as Moeen, Murad’s brother figure who is a mechanic by day and as the night falls, shadows cast over his identity too, but never on the goodness of his heart.

Siddhant as Sher is a brilliant and charming find by the casting team who fits perfectly as a mentor for Murad, giving him the confidence he needed and also familiarizing him with the rap battles which opened the larger world of rap music for Murad.

Vijay Raaz, as usual, is terrific as a frustrated father who spent his entire life believing dreams are not meant for people from slums and breaks down with pride and disbelief that his own son proved him wrong as well as heartbroken at the fact that he lived his entire life based on a lie. 

Amruta Subhash, as the distraught wife unable to comprehend losing the ground from beneath her feet and as a protective mother who only wants the best for her son, is a complete natural. Even Sheeba Chaddha as the super conservative mother who is so clueless and perplexed about what more woman wants except running a family and if got damn lucky, have a part-time job, is so goddamn cute and relatable. Kalki Koechlin, as Sky is of a different school of rebel and does complete justification to whatever little was given to her; though I would have loved to see more of her.

The music and soundtracks of Gully Boy is a separate character by itself, hard-hitting, energetic and as they proudly proclaim, AUTHENTIC. A huge shout out to all 54 musicians including rappers, beatboxers, producers and even actor Ranveer Singh for putting in extra efforts to learn and rap for a couple of tracks in the film. Personally, I am so relieved the ‘asli hip-hop’ of India is simply amazing and is far away from the typical misogynistic rap of the kind like Honey Singh.

In conclusion, someone like me who knew nothing about rapping is now researching more about the Indian world of hip hop and the soundtracks of the movie is on loop in my playlist. Also, I am planning to watch the movie again in the theatre just to enjoy that energy again in spite of it being two and a half hours long. It's worth each second.

Picture Courtesy: IMDb, Cinetalkers, ScoopWhoop, Film Companion

Petta

Down south, a few stars are stars less but god more, for their fans; it’s almost established even in North India. Two days before Petta’s release I walked into a theatre in South Delhi talking in my native language Malayalam to my friend and the security women started speaking amongst themselves, “Their superstar’s movie is out already, it’s supposed to be two days later, na?” or when I finally went for the movie today and the ticket counter person enthusiastically said, “Madam your Thalaivar’s film is super hit, its house full.” An honorary Tamilian and a die-hard fan of the language, all my life, I have always been amused as well been happy when people mistake me for a Tamilian, when I speak or by my looks, which in North India can be confusing, as for many of them STILL, all of South India culminates together in TamilNadu or as the infamous ‘Madrasi’. While that will take much longer to change I am super glad that Thalaivar is making better choices at scripts.

By choosing Kabali and Kaala, he proved how one can still have all the swag of a superstar yet have a script to act upon, except when Shankar decides to mess it all up. 2.0 made me restless about whether such a powerful actor will be reduced to memes and jokes again. But he has given an epic comeback in Petta, thanks to writer & director, Karthik Subbaraj, who gave us hard-hitting movies like Iraivi. 

Petta is a well- crafted movie for the star Rajanikanth is, yet managed to give few layers threading between right and wrong to the character, Petta Velan aka Kaali. While I could whistle and clap out for the punch dialogues, some of the plot twists took me by surprise. Karthik’s self-confessed fanboy love for the star is evident throughout the first half but he regains his director self from the intermission and gave us enough to love, laugh and root for.

While Karthik, made it a point to deviate from the regular formulaic pattern in superstar movies, with his plot twists, he didn’t forget to add a few such elements into his story either. Petta has this long list of actors with enough fan love going around within South India like Vijay Sethupathi, Bobby Simha, M. Sasikumar, Simran, Trisha, to name a few and even Nawazuddin Siddiqui to attract the crowd from the North. But sadly, except for Vijay Sethupathi as Jithu, rest of the talents were largely wasted in the movie. In fact, Nawazuddin’s character felt rather comic due to the mismatching dubbing; I would strongly suggest taking some lessons on the importance of finding a perfect dubbing artist for an actor from another language, like how they did for Anurag Kashyap in Imaikka Nodigal. For the music part of it, Anirudh’s background music to the racy numbers like dappan koothu number “Maranna Mass” largely remains on point and is what the movie exactly needs.

Although I haven’t seen one strong women character in his movies after Neelambari from Padayappa in 1999, it was a matter of personal happiness that along with his statement comeback with Kabali in 2016, the women in his movies also had a solid story around them. While Radhika Apte was supremely wasted in Kabali, Sai Dhansika, killed it in her role as a gangster girl and Kabali’s daughter; even in Kaala, while Huma Qureshi was given hardly anything to act upon, the story still had well-drafted characters played by Easwari Rao as Kaala’s wife and Anjali Patil as Puyal. 

That’s the only part that disappointed me in Petta; I have no clue why such immensely talented actresses like Simran and Trisha were cast in this movie. Except for Malavika Mohanan as Poongodi, the women in the movie had hardly anything to do.

By now I have made my peace with the fact that, it’s pointless to go for a Rajanikanth, Ajith or SRK movie for that matter, with the hope to critically review them, but just get in for an ultimate fan ride. Being a complete fan of the human being Rajani Sir and a fan of the actor from the movies in the 90s, Petta is that movie which gives us our “Thalaivar” in an avatar we would love to see him in. I would completely request Mr. Shankar to please take some cues from these directors and stop his one toned versions of superstars which is a regular pain he puts actors and their fans through, making them WhatsApp jokes rather than the ‘larger than life’ image he promises. As I previously wrote for Nirmal Sahadev’s Prithviraj starrer “Ranam”, if a superstar movie must be made, then make it this way.

Picture Courtesy: Behindwoods, Top10Cinema

Second Act

“Do you ever look at your life and wonder how you got there; if you made different choices, would you be happier?”

On a normal day, I ask this question end number of times to myself and maybe that’s why Second Act despite being another ‘chick flick’ as they would like to call it, became so personal to me. It’s been a while since I wrote a movie review, something I really enjoyed. In spite of watching all the new releases, somehow I couldn’t word it out how it made me feel. What was stopping me? Well, the only thing stopping me was me, a little quote from which the movie draws its premise and something I really need to get my head around, still.

Second Act is a breezy and heart-warming story about Maya (Jennifer Lopez) who gave over 15 years of her life to a store but is denied higher opportunities since she had to drop out from school and doesn’t own a degree. With a birthday wish for a world where street smart equal book smart, Maya’s life takes a turn she was never prepared for, thanks to her tech-savvy god-son played by Dalton Harrod. In a desperate need to prove herself right and good enough, with a lot of help from her friends and another lot of manipulations by her godson, Maya manages to pull off the ‘fake it till you make it’ set up in the initial few days. But before she knew, the plot of her own story flips making her life as well as the story a bit messier.

Jennifer Lopez is undeniably the biggest strength of this movie with her charm and drop-dead gorgeousness. She brings Maya to life with an earnest and spirited performance. Leah Remini as Maya’s sassy bestie is an absolute pleasure to watch and is someone every woman must have in real life to remind us ‘no matter who we want to be, we must never forget who we actually are.’ The rest of the cast like Vanessa Hudgens, Treat Williams, Milo Ventimiglia and Charlyne Yi gives us pleasing performances but lacks any further layers to their characters. 

Except for a few unconvincing plot twists, the film largely worked for me, as somewhere it’s a personally relatable movie. Somewhere along a life so messed up, we often undervalue ourselves and try to project a personality or life completely different from what’s real. Only to realize after hitting the rock bottom that, ‘You are always good enough and you are the only one who ever doubted it.’

Picture Courtesy: IMDb