Thursday, March 20, 2014

Mini-Reviews: South Indian Edition

Bhavani, 2011 (Tamil)

Sneha as a bad-ass lady cop? Yes please. ACP Bhavani takes her khaki-fitting tips from Chulbul Pandey and takes shit from nobody. Not from the corrupt politicians who run the town, not from their neverending parade of rowdies, and not from the corrupt and apathetic police at her station. She’s brave, honest, likes object lessons and is really, really good at her job. She beats up a lot of people, all of whom deserve it.

It’s pretty strictly an action movie. There’s no romance track, and the family drama is limited to the villain and his son using Bhavani’s sister as a pawn in their escalating war. Her father is around too, but what do you say about a character who is willing to marry his daughter off to her rapist? Nothing good, that’s for sure. There’s what appears to be an attempt at a comedy track involving a slapstick policeman with a Hitler mustache, but I don’t think he’s ever involved at all in the actual plot. Which is sparse, unfortunately. Mostly it’s just the villains doing worse and worse things (and we started off with girls off the street being kidnapped, raped, and murdered, so, yeah) in retaliation to Bhavani’s crackdown, and her beating people up, striding around taking down lawbreakers, and removing her sunglasses dramatically.

She also gets a pretty fantastic hero song.
So it’s not that good of a movie, but I cannot stress this enough: Sneha as a bad-ass lady cop being bad-ass for 2 hours is completely worth your while, assuming you don’t mind the violence. (And at least it’s played as serious instead of comedy like in R… Rajkumar.) It’s also one of the few Tamil movies on Eros Now with subtitles.


Oh My Friend, 2011 (Telugu)


Just a simple drama about two childhood friends, Siri and Chandu, and their relationships as they grow up. Shruti Haasan and Siddharth are delightful. It’s so nice to see Shruti being fun and happy after watching her in 3, and Siddharth is a pretty adorable dancer. The story, though, didn’t quite do it for me. It’s very Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Naa: a boy and a girl are good friends, everybody thinks they’re secretly in love, despite being engaged to other people. The twist is that they’re right. They don’t have romantic feelings for each other, and don’t want to marry. The trick is to convince everybody else.

The problem I had was their naivete about their relationship. Okay, you’re best friends. But have some boundaries! If you run roughshod over other people’s couples time, or you call your best friend excitedly while on a date with your fiance, they’re going to get pissed. It could be worth examining how any closeness between men and women has to get scrutinized as potential romance, but Siri and Chandu seem completely oblivious, as if “we’re just friends” is supposed to excuse damaging their romantic relationships. The climax was pretty frustrating as well, with Siri’s fiance and Chandu having it out, while the women hang back and accept their verdict.


Vaaranam Aayiram, 2008 (Tamil)


I watched this for Sameera Reddy, having loved her in Vettai. She didn’t actually have a whole lot to do, but I didn’t end up minding because it was a touching story of the relationship between Surya (Suriya) and his father (also Suriya). It’s a little slow, but it’s stuck with me for the intimate portrayal of their family. It’s so nice to see a realistic happy family on screen and you feel comfortable with the characters immediately.

I don’t know that the movie's strictly realistic, since between the young love and family interactions there is unnecessary dishooming, dramatic army missions, and expressing your grief via pelvic thrusting all over town, but the emotions and relationships rang true, and happen very organically. The only bad note was Surya’s second love interest Priya (Ramya) who could have easily been replaced by a placard saying “Hi, I am the girl-next-door cliche”. On the other hand, they made sure not to devalue Surya’s relationship with Meghna (Sameera). Major props to Simran, who was seriously flawless as Surya’s mother.

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