Category: cinema:tamil

Categories
cinema cinema:tamil FRS

FRS: JAGAME THANDHIRAM (2021)

So you all know what an FRS is right? Right?    

Disclaimer: We can only begin an FRS, we can never finish it convincingly.

And so we begin, with our invocation against gangsterism

Yes it is a genre of film but we don’t have to like it.

Yes it does seem cool, but all of us here at the FRS are in this endless process of ageing, which automatically means that we are against cool stuff like coloured jackets-wearing-beedi-smoking-at-the-same-time-smirking-gangsters.

Maybe you can sense there is some hate or you can also take the logical reasoning about how when you make gangsterism the main vehicle of your film you can give any reason to justify it, where lies all our problems with gangster movies. Yes it’s a genre and we (FRS writer’s room) don’t have to like it because supposed cinematic greats have an affinity towards it and even to risk earning the wrath of all film bros.

So yes gangsterism is against the law, whatever is the reason.

+101: No Narration. Good call.

<Trivia Thagaval Sponsored by Wikipedia>

The first half (divide as you will this is a direct OTT release) is very much a reworking of ‘A Fistful Of Dollars’ which itself is a remake of Yojimbo, which in turn Kurosawa said might have been inspired by the pulp novels of Dashiell Hammett.

#PulpisGood

</Trivia Thagaval Sponsored by Wikipedia>

It is the story of an outsider who comes to town where two warring gangs compete for control, the smart outsider plays one against each other, of course for personal benefit.

Here the town is London and the man with no name, actually is named Suruli.

-45: In trying to paint the character of Suruli colourfully, the director has forgotten even to sketch the rest of the characters.

Even the most paraded character of London gangster Peter, here played by James Cosmo, who unceremoniously gets added to the list of foreign powers who pose no challenge.

-34: Reinforcement max: movie, characters keep saying that Peter is a racist and white supremacist, while we already got it with his nameplate which reads “WHITE POWER” and random Ku Klux Klan outfit in his room.

His introduction too shows that how immigrants fear him, but somehow Peter is not able to face the problems posed by the gang headed by Sivadoss (Joju George)

-69: Obsession with intros: the first ten minutes of the film is just intros, some with ultra-text splashed on screen ala Tarantino- most movies take time to introduce their characters and that’s not a fault by itself. But in Jagame, with every powerful intro, the acceptability reduces proportionately.

For example, you show Peter as the most powerful gangster in town, but then in the rest of the movie he hardly does anything menacing.

We don’t know anything about his philosophy, every dialogue of his is just reinforcing that he is a xenophobe, which as pointed out, has been already established.

This begs the question, was this really the character that Karthik Subbaraj wanted Al Pacino to play?

+21.9: Reasons: While the idea to make a cross over gangster film needs to be appreciated, the reason to take Suruli from Madurai to London is one of the flimsiest even by Kollywood standards.

+30: Intelligentally Eli: Hero finds out everything including complex smuggling networks about rival gang within one week which other gangsters (who are in the same smuggling business) could not for years

Suruli can start an online course on competitive intelligence; we would surely pay for such things.

-5: But if hero could find out such things, he could have surely been able to find out why Sivadoss’ gang is smuggling gold etc.  

+78: Mahatma Gang Leader:  For a gang leader, Sivadoss is too trusting.

Boss, like your job description to not trust anyone.

-34: Movie proceeds as thus, till it becomes about immigrants and the Tamil Eelam issue.

While there is nothing wrong in trying to address larger issues in films, but maybe if they had been portrayed with more conviction or convincing actors would have helped the cause.

D is an accomplished actor, the transformation Suruli goes through in the film feels more like the character’s ego trip rather than real internal change, we really cannot say more without spoiling the film.

-450: A Host of Issues: If immigration issues are not enough, movies marries another going nowhere plot for speaking against private prisons, the need for identification and living a free life without borders.

Hmm yeah, maybe that’s why every minute of Jagame feels like two minutes.

+23: Cameron-Kanni Spotted: Movie at some point shows a burning merry-go-round which we feel is a reference to Terminator 2: Judgement Day and so we are giving positive points like these.

Yeah like random.

+91.5: Cut to the Combat: It almost feels that the director and crew only wanted to film the final blast everything in our way to the villain’s room shoot-out.

Don’t get us wrong, it’s really done well with slow motion and all that, but it almost seems that the rest of movie, the emotions of characters, are just a ruse(wink wink, nudge nudge)to get us to here.

Well atleast you enjoyed filming that.

Maybe the Thandiram in Jagame Thandiram is to get us to watch 2:40mins of uninspired filmmaking for the last few moments of inspired action, if that was the intention, then we have a winner.

<Winks winks, nudges nudges>

Subam

Team FRS

Categories
cinema:tamil

FRS: Eeswaran (2021)

So you all know what an FRS is right? Right? 

FRS: Eeswaran

+120: For the director for keeping the movie to a runtime of just 2 hours and that’s perfect, without the songs this would be the ideal Tamil movie length standard.

Let us explain, deep down there is a hole in the OTT watcher’s heart to watch these template big hero films, call it the comfort of the familiar or just Stockholm syndrome or Madras day celebrations, but while watching it rationality kicks in (irrespective of which stock we are from) and us FRS writers especially worry about the time that we spend on these things. 

2 hours is perfect. Let’s save this and give it to the next generation as heirloom. 

<Auto Pinnadi Ottalam Stuffs- segment sponsored Vivek & Co>

Any Big hero movie above 120 mins, must be miniseries. 

</Auto Pinnadi Ottalam Stuffs> 

-45: Narration, director begins by introducing the entire Periyasamy (Bharatiraja) clan,again and again we have told bhai, why make movies when you can make audiobook types. 

This syndrome comes from “basically all humans are storytellers” type romantix. Please. 

+11: inspired casting of Manoj Bharatiraja as the young version of the legendary directory

+22: Infact Manoj and senior B are few of the good things in Eeswaran.

-13: Hero has the tendency to slap someone inadvertently.

Hey watch your hand buddy

-70.9: No amount of justification will make you believe why a hero is so hyped in his village, in fact when you get to know the reason you question the hype even more. 

But we do agree, this is a slight improvement in writing from the other films in which hero is hyped in his village/town/city/nation/gated community just because he is hero. 

+101: Josier Ex Machina 

Raymond Chandler used to have a tip for writers which went like, “if you don’t know what to do next, have someone with a gun come in.” 

Suseendran replaces the man with the gun to the astrologer with the cowrie shells, who sets things in motion 

All this provides a good setup, but when the director does it again, it felt like this was the only idea in the film. 

-45: Movie uses Covid as a setup to get the main characters together but the pressing reality and need for social distancing and masks are reduced to comedy, it almost as though feels that the characters are not serious about the pandemic.

Josier has more influence than the doctors, that should tell us something about society bhais.  

Example: heroine believes that hero will not get covid because he is hero and in effect their kids wont too. 

Example 2: Family closely interacts with covid positive patients but miraculously, all of them, test negative

Yes, the movie was made after the first wave, and it is still a movie, but thought we should point it out. 

-101: Pandemic movie has no characters wearing masks

-67: Romance as character detail: Heroine has nothing to do in her character sketch, hence she falls in love with the hero.

+98: Movie is a callback of all movies which are callbacks of the times when all family members lived together, the times when cousins played yard games and the men drank their way to happiness and women toiled in kitchens to put up feasts. Those times, yes. 

-40.6: Eeswaran seems to have some kind of nervous issue, is it Tourette’s syndrome? He shakes his head and fingers with vigor before he says anything important like a punch dialogue, but mostly the negative points are for taking such medical conditions seriously. 

But we cannot help but ignore such things in a film which was shot during the pandemic and has a comedy sequence literally on the symptoms of covid 19

+33: It’s not an STR movie unless someone makes a reference to his coming late in films. 

+22: Hero and his friends think that speaking fast is comedy.

-92: Snakes are not going to like this film. 

-43: Nolan brothers are not going to like this film, we mean… they spend years to come up with ultra complicated plots and other visual elements to get us to the theatre, here’s Susi just saying a simple revenge is plot enough to make a film. 

Send a man to jail and he will come back to kill your family, all the rest is just STRisms and a Dsir bait scene in the trailer. 

Eeswaran help us all! 

Subam. 

Team FRS

Categories
cinema cinema:tamil

Sulthan (2021)

As the swivel chair spins #16

So someone in Kodambakkam finally took director Myskkin’s advice to heart and sought inspiration from Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. 

Just think of Sulthan as Seven Samurai written by Baahubali writer Vijayendra Prasad, which would mean that it would increase in scale (seven samurais become eighty loveable thugs) and that the focal point of the film will always rest on the hero (in spite of the eighty loveable thugs) . 

The set-up is also a fertile ground for Kollywood  to preach to the world about agriculture (pardon our pun). 

It’s the kind of movie you know will begin with the mythical birth of the hero (here in between a fight between two rival gangs) and how his arrival is supposed to change everything. 

It’s the kind of movie that makes you see the frame over which it operates, in a way it feels like the movie itself is smirking at you, this is what you asked right? 

Kollywood continues to, in my opinion, errantly glorify thugs, rowdies and gangsters and presents them as an alternate justice system, while I am not making a social comment on the presence or absence of such a system, I merely want to point out that this is a residual Godfather effect. Like since Hero belongs to a certain gang, it is seen as an affable gang of alternative justice seekers but not as violent killers, this by itself is not wrong; but the enemy (who shares the same characteristics) is the enemy just because the hero is not born into them. 

To give credit where it is due, Sulthan does go into the effects of living a violent lawless life and actually presents a way of life (agriculture) for the waywards. 

 The initial humor and general likeability of the Hero’s gang is established by the fact that they bring him up (teach him fighting and take him to school type of thing) but yet he grows up to become a Robotics engineer but his foster dads (?) continue to be knife wielding thugs for his real father. The montage of him growing up with the gang is interspersed with the gang doing unspeakable things including murder, but all this played with a joyful BGM, so that we recognize that these are the good guys. 

Or relatively, good guys. 

Loyalty too, as is often the case, an underlying pressure point, the fact that the 80+ rowdies listen and play-act in the presence of Sulthan because they pledged their allegiance to his father is even more backward than the dismal affairs of the village that this group wants to set right. The person who wants to break away from this loyalty prison is portrayed as a secondary villain. 

There are things that Sulthan does well, it too takes the video game format (done so well in KGF) and makes into the movie, each villain is a level, unfortunately there are only two levels in Sulthan. There is also an insistence that efforts take time to achieve (like agriculture) rather than resorting to the often followed immediate success template. 

But after a point it does not matter, if you do not really connect with ‘the gang’ or see through the frame, as I did. Movie creates and defeats the purpose of pitting one person against the other when I don’t know who to really root for. 

The director expects me to root for ‘this gang’ because Hero is part of it, but then I have seen a lot of movies and like how Velan says in Singaravelan, I have seen a lot of the same type of movies. 

Sulthan is now streaming on Disney+Hotstar

Categories
cinema cinema:tamil

On Vivek

(1961-2021)

1999’s Unnaruge Naan Irundhal was a marker of how Kollywood comedy would be shaped, at least for the next few years. Headlined by Parthiban, who was largehearted enough to take up roles which provided room for most supporting actors of the comedic variety as yes he could vibe well with them, being a humorist himself. Unnaruge Naan Irundhal had Vadivelu, as the village drunk who Parthiban’s character encounters, the scenes between them are indicative of their partnership which would reach peak in next year’s Vetri Kodi Kattu. 

Vivek joins the party much later, as is typical how this movie could have been made- a collection of random humorous sketches and a thin story to string it all together. As a frustrated actor-director who comes to the village to make a Rambha film (yes this is the Meena-Rambha movie ) , Vivek steals a movie really did require stealing, it was after a long time when the industry made fun of itself- he covers night schedules, late coming actors, sentiment scenes and Telugu style dance steps (Paniyaram Paniyaram Paniyaram anyone?). The short time he is on screen would earn him his first Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Comedian. 

Let’s come back to the indicative part, while Vadivelu was excelling in the comedy situations that left him feeling like fool or left him beaten black and blue; Vivek would take up an issue and deconstruct it, even within the framework of the sketch comedy that the films that was being offered to him, allowed. Unnaruge Naan Irundhal is like a fork in the road where Vadivelu and Vivek parted. 

In the new millennium, Vivek found an immediate place as the funny friend of then up and coming youth heroes, Vijay, Ajith, Vikram and Madhavan- but the frustration in his comedy remained (recollect the Shaeey! Kadhalukku silai vekkuranga, nee elai vekkure from Minnale ) and he elevated himself to the position where he could make fun of the heroes themselves (later Vivek gave up this position to Santhanam) but never would he miss out to include issues ( as in daily travails that the youth faced- ahem of the time) like mobile phone bill, petrol prices and even boring art films (Kadhal Jothi in Eyy Nee Romba Azhaga Irukke!). He strived to not reduce himself to a meme. 

A combination of factors including the multifold ‘image’ growth of the above mentioned heroes and the game changing Winner- well, we all know what happened after that. 

It is this short period between 2000 and 2003 that Vivek shone, he would talk about enrollment in caste societies (Dum Dum Dum), brahminism ( Saami) , ills of city life (Run), advertising ( Eyy Nee Romba Azhaga Irukke- Ullam Ketkume Beer) but it never seemed like he was making a statement for the sake of it, only all round good natured humor. 

Vivek couldn’t go full on into body language adi-dhadi comedy ( he tried that too for a while when we clearly see that Vivek was Vadivelu stand-in such films) , he couldn’t go into insult comedy of his predecessors, but he found his niche in the mix of pop-culture (Mission Impossible, Indecent Proposal all found a place)- harmless imitations (mostly Kamal, Sivaji, Kalaignar and Vairamuthu), social awareness and daily irritations. Sadly this golden period, like all golden periods, only lasted for a time. 

He would do them at a bigger scale (naturally) in later Shankar films which still had the smell of early 2000s in them. 

Like all good artistes,Vivek  reinvented himself by occasionally playing against type and because comedy is the most difficult of arts, he could do everything else, the most recent of which is Vellai Pookal, a well made thriller set in Seattle- an example of how he could carry a film with relatively unknown actors.

Of course, there are many Viveks (within the screen and outside) that are worth of public adulation, it could be his mission to plant one crore saplings or his quest to further the memory of APJ Abdul Kalam in the state or in general the goodness of his twitter account. 

Many will write about those facets and rightly should, but these are where my memories begin. 

No end card for you Vivek sir , this could be just another ‘Take Diversion’ and thank you for the humor.

Categories
cinema cinema:tamil FRS

FRS: Bhoomi (2021)

So you all know what an FRS is right? Right?

Even before the Big Bang, there was agriculture

+25: For #JR25. Nandri Vanakkam. 

+12: a long time ago in a galaxy far far away types opening for this movie which opens in one corner of the universe and zooms in on planet earth, because the movie title is Bhoomi (earth), of course while the credits play.

+101: from the very first we know that Jeyam Ravi has actually done two world (bhoomi)changing things

  1. Help humans live using carbon dioxide instead of oxygen by inventing one mathirai (tablet) 
  2. Recreate Mars’ climate on earth and use it to grow plants.
Space X Samudayam

-11: That the movie will not choose to focus on the exciting stories behind these breakthroughs, tells a lot about the movie. 

+33: Director Lakshman’s screen credit comes immediately after Jeyam Ravi says, ‘give me one seed and I shall create a new world’ (whistle moments for fans of the director) 

-21: Movie missed the opportunity to name itself ‘Seed-an’ because most of it is about Bhoomi’s search for potent seeds only. Yes, the hero’s name is also Bhoomi, movie name is also Bhoomi, planet name is also Bhoomi. 

FRS Trivia Thagaval sponsored by Wikipedia 

Keen watchers will remember that Vijay’s name in Kaavalan is also Bhoomi 

+12: When American media asks, the hero will say that his hero is not a scientist or an inventor but a humble farmer from his hometown. 

Annadata -1, America- 0

+1776: NASA salaries are so good that Bhoomi can buy villa which is miga miga arugil to the Statue Of Liberty (ofc)

+101: NASA employee policies are so good that suddenly Bhoomi gets one month leave, just before a potentially universe changing mission.

-40: Said humble farmer is played by Thambi Ramiah, his screen duration can be immediately guessed based on the paavam face that he is having and the number of paavam family members in his house. 

Oops spoilers. 

-35: Heroine is a bayandha subhavam types, although this initially used as comedy material, this character trait is lost as the movie progresses. Boss why you introduce characteristics and then forget it mid-way.

-323: As usual, as is typical of Kolly thinker movies, officials, police, IAS officers and politicians are all bad people and have no redeeming qualities. So, obviously, all 4 make up the nasama villain set vs our NASA hero. 

+90: Hero displays scientific temper, wow Kolly thinkers! 

-90: Hero displays scientific temper in all the wrong things, like taking the strand of hair from the heroine and analysing it to find what emotions she was going through 

-41.2: Over the course of the movie, the hero loses the scientific part and only has the temper. 

-17.8: Movie runs around a bit before becoming the usual corporate is bad and zero sum game template, usual diet of Kolly thinkers. 

+14: Seems director is also subscribing to all the conspiracy video channels that some of the FRS writers are too, movie suddenly makes a turn to reveal the main villain as Richard Child (possible play on the Rothschild family) and 13 others who control everything in the world

Child is the father of the (bad) man group

+69: Bhoomi is also a worthy addition to the drone camera pandemic that is plaguing the Kolly industry, most of movie is in bird’s eye view 

For five minutes, movie also is shot like “Life of Ram” from 96 when Bhoomi and his schoolmate go in search of potent seeds from the tribes who live in the forest. Of course, they are still doing untouched agriculture.

-75: Rest of the movie is just Bhoomi vs Richard Child speaking to one another in slow voices over the mobile phone which in Kollywood is dubbed casually as “cat and mouse game”, only this game is not interesting only. 

+36: Something something happens and Bhoomi decides that he will be starting his own ‘farming corporate’ and now movie is about homemade cola companies vs foreign cola companies

-36: but earlier it was against corporate itself, but now suddenly they are okay with Indian companies that exploit agri lands, such water and pollute environment

Decide Bhoomi, who are you fighting??? 

-100: Bhoomi and his new brand, imaginatively titled “Tamizhan” will accept capital from Indian corporate houses, but will not strike a deal with them to use their distribution networks, but why? 

Men of culture, agriculture

Also why would you launch your brand across the country on the same day so that villain can easily cut-off/buy-off all your produce?

Other notable Kolly viruses ( segment sponsored by Chitra & Co ) 

Short term virus- it originated in the “one song la millionaire” trope, now it is extended to represent one montage le systemic change. 

Bhoomi is an immediate montage success and now all farmers want to be like him, so he even goes on a talk show to convince his fellow farmers, who are immediately….wait for it…convinced. 

Same virus reappears when Bhoomi wants to launch all products of the Tamizhan brand across the state on the same day (pongal) ! But why ? Can start in a region and then scale right? Looking at how customers react to your product etc? 

Maybe the director thinks that selling products and releasing movies are the same thing, we don’t know, just guessing. 

Like…never mind.

That brings us to the next virus, which is the identity virus, every battle is ultimately a battle to bring down the Tamil Identity. 

In Bhoomi, this is planned by Richard Child on a global scale and to much of Bhoomi’s advantage it is this virus that ultimately helps his cause. 

People will buy products just to save their Identity, quality of product and all no one will check? If it is from the Tamizhan brand then people will buy, it seems.

What if corporate guy is actually giving a good product at a low price? Are you guys gonna shun them just because he doesn’t share your identity? 

So many questions, but no answer from Kolly Thinkers. 

So many viruses in Kollywood, let’s chronicle some more in the FRSs to come. Chitra & Co is in no way responsible for the content, that they run a pharma business should not be of anyone’s concern etc disclaimer. 

-43: If you have read till here, you will probably be tired, just like how we felt after hearing the “Tamizhan Endru…” BGM for every act (in slow motion) that the hero does in the movie

-27: All songs whenever, wherever.

As we sat to compile more points, the FRS writers realized that the movie sneaked in a brand promotion for one of the veshti brands that the hero endorses. But since that is Indian corporate, it’s all allowed. 

Yeah so. 

All data and statistics are incidental and non-serious except the ones provided by our data analytics team in Pune

Subam.