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Natchathiram Nagargiradhu (2022), a chaotic monologue by Pa Ranjith
Director Pa Ranjith is a well-known and welcome voice in Tamil cinema talking about the atrocities committed against Dalits and the oppressed in his cinema. In his latest film Natchathiram Nagargiradhu (2022) he has taken it to new levels and made a film that feels like a lesson on the subject. He deserves appreciation for openly presenting the important issues of intercaste marriages and the resulting honour killings, but an entire film with no discernable story makes it uninteresting. It gets our mangoidiots rating of Raw. As a director, Pa Ranjith displays his magic in the opening scene where a couple who are in bed, start a casual conversation followed…
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Cobra (2022), a three-hour film that was tame
Seeing Cobra (2022), it was clear that like all his previous films, Chiyaan Vikram has worked super hard on this one too – in the various make-up, he was totally unrecognizable – excellent performance by him. The film is about a mercenary killer, whose identity is not known to anyone. The killer is chased by an Interpol officer (the cricketer Irfan Pathan) & by a world’s rich businessman. The film gets a Raw in mangoidiots scale. Starting with an engaging plot, the movie was enjoyable for the first hour, but then it loses its orientation and gets chaotic for no reason. The visuals and the overall arrangement of the scene…
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Thiruchitrambalam (2022)
Thiruchitrambalam by director Mithran R Jawahar is a feel-good romance film that we normally don’t see in Kollywood, which likes to over-exaggerate love, loss, friendship, and family. Nithya Menen and Bharathiraja have given phenomenal performances, the former casually overtaking Dhanush in most scenes. I like the two-hour-plus running time which benefitted from a no-nonsense screenplay. Even with these, I am giving a Raw rating as the story was unmemorable and on expected lines. In a middle-class household, Thiruchitrambalam Sr. (played by Bharathiraja) is the grandfather of the hero Thiruchitrambalam, and he manages the household and cooking. His son Inspector Neelakandan (played by Prakash Raj) and grandson (the hero) have past baggage…
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Viruman (2022), a formula village film!
If you go to a library on Tamil films, reach the rack on village stories, pick the first book covering father-son differences and go directly from there to the location for shooting, you will get Viruman (2022). The film gets a raw rating in the mangoidiots scale. Karthi has done well the role of the village hero who is honest to a fault, strong as hercules, yet crumbles on the first instance for love & family. Debutant Aditi (Director Shankar‘s daughter) fits the role of the rural girl, impresses with her natural appearance and unpretentious acting. Surprisingly, comedian Soori has underplayed and shouts less, making him tolerable. Manoj Bharathiraja comes…
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Kuruthi Aattam (2022), a timeworn gangster war & friendship
The film starring Atharvaa and Priya Bhavani Shankar has been aptly titled the Kuruthi Aattam. The two-and-half-hour film is a non-stop sequence of action, chases, fights, knives and blood. Add to this, the story is based in Madurai, the city that Kollywood loves to portray as the gangster capital of the state. Director Sri Ganesh keeps you engaged by the fast-paced screenplay, but the lack of a powerful story and absence of definitions for any of the characters including the protagonist makes the movie exhausting. We can’t wait for the bad guys to die and the hero to triumph so that we can leave. It gets a Mangoidiots Raw rating. Sakthivel…
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Kaatteri (2022), you laugh yet feel tired with this horror comedy!
Kaatteri (2022), featuring Vaibhav, Sonam Bajwa, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, Karunakaran & others is a familiar comedy film. A group of misfits venture to an unknown place haunted by ghosts that resemble living humans during the day. How they survive or who survives is the story. The first half-an-hour was enjoyable, we were made to laugh by the good performances of the cast but the second half was exhausting. As a result, it gets our mangoidiots rating of Raw. I love the acting of Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, a fabulous actress, she gets only a limited role as one of the ghosts & a small flashback. Another actor l like is Karunakaran, he has…
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The Legend (2022), an amateurish film that was laughable!
From the time the songs, which were hits, and the trailer got released I knew I will watch the film – The Legend (2022). Produced by Saravana Store‘s owner Arul Saravanan and featuring him as the hero, the film was released on over 600+ screens and even had an early morning show. It was a full house for the first-day evening show in Luxe Cinemas, Chennai. The action film is not a spoof, is not a parody, but if you imagine it to be one, you would thoroughly enjoy the movie. I and my friends did so and we had a good time. You won’t be able to get through…
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The Gray Man (2022), an uninspiring spy action
If I am given just a minute to think of the story for a big-budget spy movie, I am likely to come up with something uninspiring like The Gray Man (2022). The Netflix original film made with a $200 million budget was much talked about in the Indian press for Dhanush playing a role in it. It was good to see Ryan Gosling in a full-length action film after the emotional hit First Man (2018), his excellent performance keeps us sitting through this film. It gets a Raw rating. Sierra Six is an undercover CIA assassin, while on a mission he gets access to a memory card that may contain…
