Team-BHP - The Regional movies thread!

Marakkar - 3/5 (Malayalam - theatre release)

Watched the much awaited magnum opus of Priyan - Mohanlal duo, the iconic partnership that had created huge entertainers and something that most of us grew up watching.

It would be unfair to rate this movie below par due to stature and the hard work and efforts the makers must have supposedly put in to create this.

Probably the first Malayalam movie that got the graphics work right, especially to capture the stunning battles on sea and with fire. Certainly watchable for its visual effects. Whether you like or not is entirely subjective based on your taste. They have kind of got all the elements right. With the story line heavily revolving around Marakkar, there are numerous south Indian (+Sunil Shetty) stars appearing time to time having nothing to contribute or probably there isn't enough script for them. Guess Priyadarshan wanted to rope in most of his yesteryear favorites into his dream project. (though no Srinivasan?)

And don't expect a Bahubali here. The problem with this sort of movie is nothing but the humongous success of Bahubali. That movie has set the bar of epic action movies so high that it is going to be real tough for any other movies to match the expectations.

Allright, call it co-incidence or plagiarism or inspiration, you could relate most scenes to academy winner movies like Braveheart, Troy, Gladiator.. etc.. :eek:

Watched two movies over the last couple of weeks.

1. Kanakam Kamini Kalaham

Avoidable. Some scenes give some comic relief. Rest is laborious and forced. Plus, I think the movie could have easily been cut short by 30 mins and it would have helped

2. Annathe.

Strictly avoid. I don't know why I watched. The movie is ridiculous, even by Rajnikant standards of late. I wonder if he does even read the script. When Tamil industry gives out such good movies, why would someone of his stature dish out stuff that mocks the intelligence of the viewers? Surely Rajnikant of all people can get good scripts.

Watching him playing an action Hero when it looks like you can barely walk is a struggle for someone like me who enjoyed his movies back in the days. I think the saying 'nothing fails like success' is apt in these cases. All the so called super stars are victims of their own success.

Watched Kurup (released on Netflix).

I think it falls into the "Watchable Once" category.

The part of the story based on real-life (the murder) was dealt with rather quickly. I felt the narrative was slow during the second half and I wished things would move faster. In the end, I felt that in the name of creative liberty, the whole investigation plot was just an elaborate setup for the "Alexander" character and a sequel (already announced). The ending definitely gave me Lucifer (Malayalam) vibes.

Makes me wonder if the sole intention of the makers was setting up the Alexander character, and they conveniently used Kurup (a real-life villain) to easily establish the character's origin/back story.

Does the movie glorify Kurup? Well, I guess there is no doubt who the "hero" of the movie is. And we have seen many movies that root for the flawed hero character. Kurup is no different.

Kurup, as a movie, isn't horrible, but it isn't what you'd expect when you go into the hall. Kurup is known for the murder of Chacko, but in the movie the Chacko episode is relegated to a just "misdemeanor" and the way that part of the story is twisted is deplorable. Overall Kurup is presented as a loveable con artist who does a lot a bad things on the way to achieving greatness. The overall mood of the movie is jovial, even the part where the gruesome act is shown. Dulquer acts well but too much gimmicks to trump up his persona makes his role unbelievable. Indrajith, who usually does a good job with the roles he het is unnecessarily frigid in the role of the cop. Of the actors in the movie the only person who did justice to his character was Shine Tom.

Now, I didn't finish watching Marakkar, but it looks like a typical Priyadarshan film. He fills his frames with a lots of characters, use exquisite locations, use elaborate costumes etc, but unfortunately he uses his usual cast and they struggle hard to fit into their roles. Actors like Mukesh, Baburaj, Innocent, Mamukoya etc play their own selves dressed up in period costumes and mouthing dialogues with fake accents. All those flaws could be forgiven but the greatest abomination of the movie is Mohanlal. He is a great actor, but he is a terrible miscast in this role.

Kurup (Malayalam): A lot has already been written. So not writing a long review.

The movie itself was barely watchable. I would suggest not having any big expectations from it. It seemed too chilled out to really convey any sense of seriousness.

I thought Indrajit gave the best performance, while DQ was passable.

Kurup was a good watch as a regular entertainer, but after reading the reviews when it was released, expected some more from it. I think the real life factor was what hyped up the film, but that was not explored enough in detail and most of it were the fictional elements to enable the ultimate build up to set the stage for the sequel.

Interesting trivia: My mother in law was obsessed with the Kurup story when it actually happened in the 80's and it was a major daily topic of discussion in their circles. She was looking forward eagerly to watch this, expecting a detailed account and closure on what actually happened to Kurup. She was supremely disappointed with the film.

Dulquer was good and I think showed he can pull of the larger than life mass masala films. Prithviraj and Dulquer in my view will be the new Mohanlal and Mammootty of mass entertainers :)

The remorse of having to subscribe Sonyliv only to watch Churuli is gone now after watching Thingalazcha Nishchayam (Malayalam).

Thoroughly enjoyed this down to earth, realistic, gem of a movie. Superb performance by everyone. But it's really the top notch story telling that takes the cake. What a good contrast to the other movie I watched recently - Kurup.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Latheesh (Post 5217998)

My 8 year old son is asking me to subscribe Netflix to watch Minnal Murali. I already have Prime (1 year) and subscribed Neastream and Sonyliv (1 month) to watch few movies.

What is the vfm deal (1 month) for Netflix? I see that it cost 499 for a month.

Netflix has only monthly subscription, no annual payment option. You would need to take the 499 for a month to get full hd streaming. Not a bad idea to take it as there are bunch of movies you can watch.

On a side note, in my view, kids content for 7+ is best on Netflix.

Watched Marakkar on Prime. The effort of doing a large scale historical drama needs to be appreciated and the large set pieces were done reasonbly well. But was overall disappointed by the movie due to multiple reasons.

The core story elements were there, but somehow did not come together as a joint whole. Seemed to me a bunch of scenes stuck together and jumping from one sub plot to another.
In line with the title and the frequent praise of the title character as a naval warefare expert, kept waiting for the massive at sea battle that never came. The only good one seemed to finish before it started.
Way way too many characters including big names that just come and go without any purpose. The promotionals focussed a lot on Pranav, Kalyani and Keerthy Suresh- the current gen stars, but all of them were almost guest roles with only Pranav getting some useful screentime. Manju Warrier also was wasted.
Casting was also pretty off- As many have already said, seemed Priyadarsan lined up all his favourites and assigned them roles.
Finally Mohanlal himself, normally his performance can elevate and energize a movie, here he seemed strangely subdued.
Not to mention some other things that stood out like the slangs going on different directions, the Portuguese speaking English

etc..

Rating 2/5 for all the effort put in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Latheesh (Post 5217998)

Netflix is really worth the cost of subscription. Use their PC website to discover shows and add them to your watchlist. Then use your preferred interface (mobile, smart TV...) to watch.

The 499 plan allows two simultaneous streams and HD quality, the 199 plan permits only one stream at a time and you get only SD.

Look up any of the web links that list out the Netflix genre/category IDs, and browse away. Here is the one (actually, one of several dozen) for kids:

https://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/783