Tag: movie review

Hanu-Man Review: Telugu Superhero Film Blends Mythic And Mundane

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A still from the film. (courtesy: YouTube)

Prasanth Varma’s Hanu-Man, touted as the first Telugu-language superhero movie, scores in terms of scale and ambition. The execution, notwithstanding a few visual and ideational highs (most of them CGI-driven), struggles at times to keep pace what the film’s racing inner pulse. The disconnect mercifully isn’t overly glaring.

At the level of the yarn that Varma’s screenplay spins, Hanu-Man is a blend of the mythic and the mundane, the bombastic and the blithe. The film constantly flits from the epic to the everyday as it presents the coming-of-age story of an ordinary village boy who one fine day acquires Hanuman-like strength.  

The first hour or so of the 158-minute movie is devoted to setting the stage for the grand transition – the man’s extraordinary leap into the league of superheroes as the world knows them. It is only after 40 minutes of meandering through his light-hearted shenanigans and comic misadventures that Hanu-Man reaches the point from where the essential classic confrontation between good and evil can begin.  

The hyper-energetic Hanu-Man repackages superhero movie tropes within the cliched parameters of a overtly religion-centric drama designed to yield loads of action, doses of emotions, a whole lot of mirth and some devotional ardour.

That the screenplay never pauses to give the overheated structure some breathing space and that the lead actor Teja Sajja allows himself to be swept along by his larger-than-life pivotal role is both a strength and a drawback.

As Hanu-Man, written by the director himself, hurtles towards its predictable business end, it manages to ensure that its core strengths offset its weaknesses. It certainly isn’t a thinking person’s mythological and as an indigenous superhero epic it isn’t particularly original.

Hanu-Man draws ideas heavily from episodes of the Ramayana and proceeds to superficially touch upon the contemporary themes of power, rural exploitation, democracy and corporate expansion at the expense of the indigenous populations.

The film reunites the director with his Zombie Reddy star and builds a launchpad for a Prasanth Varma Cinematic Universe. By the time it ends, it drops enough hints about what its future might hold. On the evidence currently available, it isn’t like to put Baahubali or RRR in the shade.

For Hanu-Man to spawn an enduring and worthwhile set of sequels, it would have to appreciably raise its game. That would call for an infinitely bigger budget and that, in turn, will depend upon how enthusiastically the first outing is received by the target audience.

The Hindi dub of Hanu-Man of  which this piece is a review, certainly needed greater consistency. It is overly droll and frequently strays into gratuitous slapstick as it follows a likeable but unruly village lad who after wasting his growing-up years in petty thievery and aimless drifting develops the urge to mend his ways and be of use to his community.

It is only accidentally that he acquires invincibility thanks to a pearl that he finds in the depths of a huge lake. But harnessing and sustaining his superpower and measuring up to the responsibility it bestows takes some doing. The man faces several obstacles. He does his best to overcome the hurdles because he has one major incentive in the form of a girl he has crush on.

But that isn’t where Hanu-Man begins. It opens in late 1990s Saurashtra where a young schoolboy named Michael (who grows up to a strapping man played by Vinay Rai) wants to be a superhero like Spiderman and Batman.

Michael’s parents prove to be a hindrance. So, he does what he thinks is best. A few years later, he teams up with an asthmatic scientist Siri (Vennela Kishore) to fulfil his dream to be strong enough to brush aside all opposition.

Cut to a remote village named Anjanadri. It is surrounded by hills, lakes and jungles. A giant statue of Lord Hanuman stands guard over the hamlet. The villagers here are at the mercy of a villainous wrestler, Gajapathi (Raj Deepak Shetty), and his brutal henchmen who force everyone to pay them protection money. Anybody who opposes their writ is mercilessly snuffed out by Gajapathi in the wrestling pit.

Anjanadri is badly in need of a saviour who can rid it of its tormentors. Hanumanthu (Teja Sajja), who lives with his stern elder sister Anjamma (Varalaxmi Sarathkumar), does not have the makings of one. When the school headmaster’s granddaughter Meenakshi (Amritha Aiyer), a doctor, returns to the village from the city, Hanumanthu wants to rekindle their childhood friendship and win her heart.

All his attempts to impress the girl boomerang. He nearly loses his life when bandits attack the village and he springs to Meenakshi’s defence. Hanumanthu is grievously injured and hurled into a lake. Life takes a new turn when he lies recuperating.

All the mythic iconography surrounding the strength that Hanuman possessed and his unquestioning loyalty to Lord Rama and his subjects is evoked all the way in this superhero actioner. With nothing to lose, Hanumanthu goes into messianic mode.

News of his exploits reach the city. Michael and his scientist-accomplice fly into Anjanadri on a helicopter and promise the villagers the moon in the name of corporate social responsibility.

Hanu-Man is two origin stories rolled into one. The evolution of Hanumanthu from an unassuming lover boy to a saviour of his people is one of them. The other is centered on Michael’s desperation to get his hands on whatever it is that gives Hanumanthu his special powers.

Hanu-Man owes an obvious debt to the Hollywood superhero flicks. It blends MCU and DC Comics excesses with the flights of the imagination that mythological tales of the Indian sub-continent facilitate.

The star aura that has developed around the likes of Rajinikanth, Mahesh Babu, Prabhas and Allu Arjun are alluded to in words and deed by Hanumanthu’s best friend, Kaasi (Getup Srinu), the village milkman who doubles up as the film’s all-weather comedian.

Does Hanu-Man possess the potential to sustain the universe that Prasanth Varma hopes to create? The jury is out. For the answer, we will have to wait until the proposed follow-up arrives in our midst next year.

Cast:

Teja Sajja, Amritha Aiyer, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, Vinay Rai

Director:

Prasanth Varma

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The Village Review: Gory, Terrifying And Frequently Flummoxing

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Arya in a still from the series. (Courtesy: YouTube)

A graphic novel receives an extended and heightened live-action treatment in The Village, a Tamil-language horror series top-lined by Arya. The result is anything but even – an intriguing, multi-pronged narrative punctuated with loud, laboured passages that lapse into the excessive.

Adapted for the screen by director Milind Rau, V. Deeraj Vaidy and Deepthi Govindarajan from a graphic novel by Asvin Srivatsangam, Shamik Dasgupta and Vivek Rangachari, The Village is gory, terrifying and frequently flummoxing but not as frightening as scare-fests are meant to be.

For the most part, it is a robustly mounted and competently crafted generic web series that forays into the fantasy-tinged social history of a coastal region of Tamil Nadu where the powerful prey on the weak in an environment in which superstition and subterfuge are still rampant.

The ghosts of the past that haunt the village are as figurative as they are literal. They, and the natural environs that they inhabit, are out to strike back at the world for the grave wrongs done to them decades ago. The wounds are still raw and oozy. An unsuspecting family driving through the forest in an SUV is caught in the malign crosswinds.          

The six-episode Amazon Prime original show, which opens with the massacre of minivan passengers on a secluded forest road, extends the narrative notion of a haunted house to an entire coastal village that draws blood in horrific ways.

The bluish tint that imbues the opening episode pre-credits sequence is the dominant hue of The Village, but the series is frequently and expectedly bathed in a ruddy glow to convey the blistering effect of fire and heat as a contrast to the cold nocturnal air that hangs over large parts of the story.

Director of photography Sivakumar Vijayan makes exceptionally efficacious use of the swathes of darkness that The Village pans out in as well as of the shadows and silhouettes that they create.          

Arya lends star power to the series, but he isn’t the only one who drives The Village. Several other actors, mostly male, move to the centre of the action as the protagonist heads into the forest to save his wife and daughter from malefic forces.

A road trip for a Chennai family of three goes awry owing to a forced detour and a pair of flat tyres. The man at the wheel, Gautham (Arya), a doctor, decides to walk several miles to look for assistance – a decision that he soon has reason to regret.

He reaches a village where three men, a bar owner Peter (George Maryan), headman Sakthivel (Aadukalam Naren) and his friend Karunagam (Muthukumar K), refuse to help because of their fear of Kattiyal, a long-abandoned village from where nobody has ever come back alive.

The trio eventually relent and deign to join Gautham in his despairing search for his wife Neha (Divya Pillai) and daughter Maya (Aazhiya) who go missing along with their off-roader. The adventures of the four men in the forest form the central segment of The Village.

Another significant part of the story is peopled by a band of mercenaries and scientists. The group led by Farhan Hameed (John Kokken) includes a phlegmatic female soldier Happy (Pooja Ramachandran) and Jagan (Thalaivasal Vijay), who wants no part of what transpires as they reach the heart of the forest.

They have been despatched to the region by Prakash (Arjun Chidambaram), the scion of a Singapore-based company who has been a wheelchair user since he was a boy. Their mission is to collect samples from trees that devour humans and from a defunct factory that was once an important part of the company’s assets.

The male protagonist, who is a city dweller and a man of medicine, is understandably sceptical of the stories of ghosts and spirits that are bandied about as the reason why people do not dare venture into the village of Kattiyal, which was several decades ago home to a community of exploited workers run to the ground by a tyrannical landowner.

The Village isn’t so much about ghouls and spectral creatures as about grotesquely hideous mutants and baffling natural phenomena unleashed as a result of unbridled ambition and scientific overreach. It is also about two significant and virulently toxic father-son relationships.

One unfolds in the village between Sakthivel and his overbearing father, the other involves Prakash and his entrepreneur-dad. Neither of the two sons can bear the ways of their respective fathers – a fact that returns to ‘haunt’ them more than three decades later.

The lives of both Sakthivel and Karunagam, men from two opposite ends of the rural social spectrum, are entangled with the tragic history of the village, as is Prakash’s troubled childhood. The only outsiders in The Village are the Chennai doctor and the hired gun and his small outfit sent to Kattiyal on a mission that they aren’t allowed to question.

The Village isn’t easy to watch especially if one is squeamish. Bodies are ripped apart, torsos are impaled, limbs and heads are chopped off, bones are cracked and throats are slit. Much of the violence is graphically depicted and is preceded (or accompanied) by sibilant hisses and blood-curdling squeals.

When the blood-letting happens, which is pretty much all through the series, not much is left to the imagination. The bitter, bloody battle between the mercenaries and the mutants eventually boils down to machine-gun firepower versus the might of predatory creatures spearheaded by a Cyclopean hitman of Herculean strength.

Good, as always, is pitted against evil. The balance is tilted in favour of the latter for the most part. But not to worry, for all the collateral damage that is caused, the tragedies that occur and a protracted ordeal that is suffered, somebody is eventually enthused to declare, “God does exist.” Just as well.

Arya is the undoubted star of the show. John Kokken, Thalaivasal Vijay, George Maryan and Aadukalam Naren also deliver performances that are more than just supporting acts.

Divya Pillai as the hero’s wife and Pooja Ramachandran as a steely mercenary have limited scope in a series that is more intent on highlighting the ‘graphic’ potential of the material than on throwing into relief the personal demons that the key characters have to reckon with.

Watch The Village if you have the stomach for a no-holds-barred, squelchy, squirmy spectacle that frequently pushes the nausea factor to its extremities. Not a joy to behold but watchable enough.                          

Cast:

Arya, Divya Pillai, Muthukumar, George Maryan

Director:

Milind Rau, V. Deeraj Vaidy and Deepthi Govindarajan

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Sajini Shinde Ka Viral Video Review: Sporadically Watchable Primarily Because Of Nimrat Kaur

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Nimrat Kaur in a still from the film. (Courtesy: YouTube)

A girl from a conservative Pune family, on her birthday, lets her guard down at a Singapore nightclub. All hell breaks loose. A video of her doing a drunken “sandwich dance” between two scantily clad men goes viral and the arithmetic of the Physics teacher’s life goes haywire.

Back in Pune, under pressure from priggish parents, the prim and proper school principal Kalyani Pandit (Bhagyashree) sacks the teacher, Sajini Shinde (Radhika Madan), and two others who were part of the unauthorised girls’ trip.

Director Mikhil Musale, whose first Hindi film Made in China did not make the grade, demonstrates some of the Wrong Side Raju (the Gujarati film that he debuted with in 2016) form in Sajini Shinde Ka Viral Video. Some parts of the film are passable. Others flounder.

A cross between a social drama and a police procedural, the film, scripted by Musale, Parinda Joshi, Anu Singh Choudhary and Kshitij Patwardhan, addresses social media frenzy, slut shaming and patriarchy, pitting a young woman against a family and a society that will, even in this day and age, allow her no elbow room to be who she wants to be in her private life.

Pushed to a corner, the girl writes a note and names her father, theatre actor Suryakant Shinde (Subodh Bhave), and her fiance; Siddhant Kadam (Soham Majumdar) as her tormenters, and vanishes into thin air. Nobody knows if she has gone missing or has killed herself. The mystery thickens as contradictory clues begin to surface from the girl’s past – and at the site of a dam.

Policewoman Bela Barud (Nimrat Kaur), herself a victim of unbridled sexism in the force that has relegated her to the women’s cell because of her gender, investigates. For her, the prime suspects are Suryakant and Siddhant and her line of questioning indicates her constant desire to be regarded as a tough cop on par with her male colleagues.

One subordinate, Inspector Ram Pawar (Chinmay Mandlekar), does see her for the hard taskmaster that she is. He even saves her name as “Dooberman” in his phone book. The spelling error catches Bela’s attention but she takes the appellation in her stride. After all isn’t that what she aspires to be?

The cops are under pressure from Sajini’s friend, a student counsellor (Shruti Vyas), who starts a social media campaign that garners a lot of support from the public. She and Bela call each other names, but nothing that the two to do gets them any closer to their goal of finding the truth behind Sajini’s disappearance.

Parts of Sajini Shinde Ka Viral Video are gripping because the screenplay succeeds in getting the audience to care for Sajini although her family, including her docile mother Urmila (Sneha Raikar), thuggish brother Akash (Ashutosh Gaikwad) and her boyfriend appear not to be unduly perturbed at the turn of events.

Flashes of her interactions with her father and her fiance; (many of them seen via social media videos) bring to the fore facets of her life and personality that only strengthen Bela’s suspicion that it is someone very close to Sajini who is the culprit.

The film sways between the predictable (mostly) and the unpredictable (rarely) as Bela and Ram ferret around for clues. Many are found, listed as serviceable evidence, if not a breakthrough.

Simultaneously, two lawyers (Sumeet Vyas and Kiran Karmarkar), one representing Siddhant, the other Suryakant, slug it out.

One man who sits in on these legal pow-wows, Suryakant’s elder brother (Shashank Shende), not only stays on the sidelines but he comes off as a character who has been rustled up without much thought. He is meant to be the ugly face of patriarchy while Sajini’s brother is masculinity gone awry but neither of the two figures add any genuine value to the plot.

.But as has already been said, Sajini Shinde Ka Viral Video is a marked improvement on Musale’s Made in China. Yet, even with a reasonable 116-minute runtime, it seems a tad stretched and repetitious at times.

Musale, working in a setting outside of Gujarat for the first time, gets the Maharashtrian cultural and linguistic nuances right, using Pune’s theatrical traditions as an effective backdrop for the character of an orthodox patriarch who allows his wife no agency, a fact that impacts all his other relationships.

The script also throws in a generous smattering of Marathi, which, as it transpires, is a language that Bela does not understand. She admits as much. She is told by Suryakant in so many words to do something about it – a nod to the native vs. outsider debate that isn’t really what Sajini Shinde Ka Viral Video is about.

There are many other such elements that the film alludes to but does not stay with long enough for them to become an integral part of the narrative design.

It is Nimrat Kaur who saves the day with a solid, admirably consistent performance as the investigator who has much more on her plate than just a case of a missing girl. As long as she is in the thick of the action – it is another matter that the film is more verbiage than vigour – Sajini Shinde Ka Viral Video is watchable.

Bhagyashree, Soham Majumdar and Subodh Bhave deliver performances that provide the counterpoints to the actions and words that Sajini is forced to take recourse to in the days and months leading up to her disappearance.

However, Radhika Madan, playing Sajini Shinde, chews her words up in a way that makes many of her lines unintelligible. If the mumbles are meant to convey fragility and confusion, it isn’t a good creative choice given that the film rests primarily on what the titular character has to articulate.

She and the film do have a lot to say, but it is only stray bits of the noise that Sajini Shinde Ka Viral Video makes in the service of its stance against patriarchy, social media toxicity and self-serving activism that make it through the dense haze of conflicting, problematic messaging, not the least of which is its unconscionably casual attitude to suicide.

Sporadically watchable primarily because of Nimrat Kaur and on occasional twist that hits home.

Cast:

Nimrat Kaur, Radhika Madan, Sumeet Vyas, Bhagyashree, Soham Majumdar

Director:

Mikhil Musale

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Review: Chloe Domont’s ‘Fair Play’ Poignantly Tackles Gender Politics | FirstShowing.net

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Review: Chloe Domont’s ‘Fair Play’ Poignantly Tackles Gender Politics

by Manuel São Bento
October 24, 2023

One of the main reasons why the Sundance Film Festival is so popular amongst cinephiles is the total focus on purely indie stories, often handled by first-time directors, writers, actors, and many others pursuing their dreams. Fair Play was highly acclaimed at this year’s edition of the event (here’s Alex’s review), continuing to collect positive reactions during its festival run throughout the year. As it has finally made its streaming debut on Netflix worldwide, I approached it with somewhat high expectations, hoping that Chloe Domont’s feature directorial debut deserved the hype. Domont delves into complex gender dynamics, highlighting the biases faced by successful women in various fields, shining a light on the challenges of couples working side by side in a tense big city thriller that builds up to an admittedly divisive ending. Independently of each viewer’s position regarding this conclusion, it’s the careful study and respective messages that really matter.

The film presents a thought-provoking story underscoring the many disparities women encounter on their journey to success. It raises important questions about the expectations placed on women to excel beyond the ordinary to achieve recognition, while men’s accomplishments often receive recognition based solely on their professional competence. In a world where women are continually held to different standards, Fair Play poignantly portrays the challenges they confront. Their achievements, even when remarkable, are often overshadowed by the stereotype that women must consistently go beyond what is expected – leading to prejudiced sexual comments – to be seen as truly successful. Domont fiercly underlines the importance of dismantling such biases and the urgent need for equal recognition based on merit rather than gender.

Nevertheless, the movie’s core is found in the intricate and intimate dynamics of the romantic protagonists, Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich). As their jobs gradually have an impact on their once perfect but now crumbling harmony, the disruptive insecurities faced by couples who are navigating the same career path emerge. Fair Play tackles intriguing issues about what it means for a man when his partner, who shares the same professional ambitions, achieves her goals before he does, just like it depicts what a woman may feel when her counterpart begins to treat her differently due to the new status.

Domont goes into the psychological landscape of such scenarios, depicting the vulnerabilities and pressures both may experience: men when they find themselves in the supportive role or playing second fiddle, and women when they’re the breadwinner and person in charge. The narrative paints a vivid, relatable portrait of the perils faced by couples who share a professional space, working side by side or even operating under one another. It serves as a reminder the journey of love & ambition is often filled with unexpected obstacles, and Fair Play does a commendable job of portraying these nuances. That is, until the crazy ending…

Fair Play Review

The initial stages of the film seductively draw viewers into a world of steamy sensuality and intrigue. The sizzling dynamics of Emily and Luke serve as a captivating backdrop, leaving audiences eager to discover when their professional ambitions will ultimately encroach upon their personal connection. However, it’s within this climactic crescendo that Fair Play undergoes a dramatic transformation. The movie sheds its earlier precision and dives headlong into a sea of chaos, unshackling from the previously controlled levels of tension. Domont abandons subtlety for on-the-nose messaging, and characters turn increasingly shrill. Shocking moments unfold, seemingly for the sake of shock value, leaving viewers with a sense of dissonance.

It’s not a completely unexpected turn, and far from nonsensical, which many male viewers will say to try and defend their gender as if the film is an attack on men. Nowadays, something like what is shown in the final moments of the movie is nothing truly surprising to encounter anymore. The problem is how highly sensitive topics related to domestic violence and sexual abuse are introduced. Domont abruptly dives into troubling territory, and quickly escalates situations, disrupting the narrative’s overall balance. Fair Play was clearly building up to a strong third act, but making both characters act out risks alienating audiences, leaving a jarring aftertaste and raising questions about the film’s intended message.

In the end, it doesn’t hurt Fair Play as much as one may fear. A final remark to the dedicated performances. Dyvenor (best known from Bridgerton) delivers a gripping display, embodying her character with full commitment, and sharing palpable chemistry with Ehrenreich. Certainly it is one of the most memorable performances of the year. Her counterpart is also quite good, although occasionally veering into the over-the-top territory, especially as the story and character become progressively more intense near the end. Both carry Domont’s thematic messages expertly, contributing to an extremely satisfying viewing that, indeed, warrants the positive feedback it has been receiving so far.

Final Thoughts

Fair Play is an emotionally charged exploration of love, ambition, and gender dynamics. Writer / director Chloe Domont thoughtfully addresses these themes, highlighting biases faced by successful women, the personal challenges of couples working in the same space, and the inevitable vulnerabilities that arise from these scenarios. The dedicated performances from Phoebe Dyvenor and Alden Ehrenreich make it a gripping viewing experience, emphasizing the film’s thought-provoking messages about gender politics and seeking equal recognition based on merit rather than gender. And the dramatic conclusion warrants heated debate…

Manuel’s Rating: A-
Follow Manuel on Twitter – @msbreviews / Or Letterboxd – @msbreviews

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