Review: Irandaam Ulagam (2013)

Selvaraghavan's Irandaam Ulagam could have been a path-breaking movie in Kollywood. It did have a great potential to do so. It could have made Hollywood, Bollywood and any other wood turn back at us in awe. It could have proved that innovative film making is possible even in India. It could have made director Selva a legend. 

Enough of could haves, coming to reality, Irandaam Ulagam is a test of patience. Anyone could become restless. The main flaw of the movie is not the pace but the screenplay, not the story but the execution. If you understood all the could haves in the previous paragraph, you would understand why Irandaam Ulagam miserably fails.

It is not a commercial entertainer nor is it a no-brainer, it has immense creativity and this movie would have looked world class on a whiteboard but the way it was shot and the way it was funded has sunk the movie. 

Selvaraghavan is a genius no doubt but he needs someone to teach him "how to make a movie". You can't shoot a movie with a plot straight from a scribble book and expect everyone to like it. Of course, with the current viewing public, all you need to give them is entertainment. With movies grossing in hundreds of crores and new milestones reached, a "different" movie is bound to fail in terms of collections. 

I know many will question my expectations and some self-proclaimed critics will laud the movie for its innovative and bold execution, I would take my own stance. This movie is not worth the treatment. It deserves more. Selva has thought ahead of time, he has imagined something which no one had. Although, he derives a lot of inspiration from Cloud Atlas (in plot) and 300 (in fight sequences), he still has brought a difference. Few months ago, he gave an interview where he lashed upon the current movie makers for succumbing to such poor cinema. He said people look for money rather than making a nice movie. He said he wants to make a movie which others will look up to, His aim is right and he did go in that direction in Irandaam Ulagam but he has failed big time.

Background score by Anirudh was great in the starting but slowly goes back to his "3" hit tune and becomes annoying. Songs by Harris Jeyaraj are nice to hear but are cliched from his own work. (I don't know how long he will survive by repeating the same tunes again and again). The re-recording was abysmal. The graphics, although very amateur, were great for a low budget movie beating Kochadaiyaan by miles (considering its huge budget). The editing is pathetic and the scene-to-scene transitions are abrupt at places.

Irandaam Ulagam is definitely a movie ahead of its times. Too hard for a producer to do justice to the director's amazing imagination. Some learnings from Hollywood can help, George Lucas shot the last 3 parts of Star Wars first because the first 3 demanded resources that were unavailable that time. He waited and made a mark. Irandaam Ulagam is a movie worth an enormous budget. I was imagining this to be shot by James Cameron and this would have won an oscar. Such was the movie's capability.

Usually, I end my review with a line which would help you take a decision on whether to watch a movie or not but with this review I would leave it up to you. Watch it if you want to fund the producer. Spending money here is a lot better than spending it on crappy movies which earn 100+ crores.

If you are looking for entertainment, don't watch this movie. If you are looking for a masterpiece, don't watch this movie. But if you want to appreciate creativity or if you want to test your patience, go watch this movie. Anyone who comes out of this movie without a bit of irritation would have relished the creative and innovative thinking of Selvaraghavan and would be satisfied by that. I was one of them. Were you?

Rating: 2/5 (only for his thought process)

Irandaam Ulagam: Miles short of a masterpiece!

Review: Aarambam (2013)

Probably one of the biggest year end releases in Tamil cinema and with multiple star power Aarambam created sky high hype and to add to it the distributors/theatre owners decided to screen innumerable shows in Chennai. Imagine 91 shows for a movie in just one multiplex. Totally Insane!

Getting straight to the point, as expected, Aarambam did not live up to that hype. The movie had a lot of potential. The first half was very exciting and for a change I thought that I would give a good rating to this movie. But a boring and dull second half left me un-engaged and think of other things during the show.

If I had to point out one best thing in the movie, it would be the cinematography. It was stunning and world class. Om Prakash needs a pat on the back for taking us through some amazing and never before seen visuals and camera angles. Apart from this, if something scored, then it was surely Ajith. He pulls it off with ease and class.

All the other departments failed. Editing was below par, songs were totally unhearable (better to hear just the background music - Young tamizhachi was a good and stylishly shot number but with a straight rip off party prelude), acting by others were passable, graphics were very amateurish.

Arya makes a fun of himself throughout the movie, Nayantara follows his path. Tapasee, on the other hand, was cute in certain areas and her delivery was different from the others. Rana Daggubati was utterly useless. No scope for him.

None of them in the cast knew how to dance. Choreography was like aerobics. 

At a high level, the film looks like a stylish hollywood flick but frequent hiccups in the screenplay, logical fallacies and other minor errors brings down the overall quality of the movie to a level lower than expected.

For a movie of this scale, errors like "using mouse on a non-clicking interface", "tamil dubbing characters starting to talk directly in tamil" and "location errors" should have definitely been avoided. Also, the director could have avoided a lame joke on Ajith's namesake enemy Vijay by not letting a Vijay look-alike come and do some unwanted gimmicks in one of the scenes which involved the character coming out of a theatre playing Rajini's Sivaiji.

To sum it up, I would say Arrambam is not that bad it does have its own ways to work, but the negatives along with a cliched storyline lets down the viewer. After a decent first half, I began to think if this is one of the best Ajith flicks in my list but at the end this thought ends up in the trash.

A swing and a miss is Aarambam but still is definitely better than Billa 2. Watch if you want to have some timepass and definitely watch if you are an Ajith fan.

Rating: 2.5/5

Aarambam: Could have actually made it simple!