A 2008 Malayalam movie by Major Ravi starring Mohan Lal as Commanding Officier Col. Mahadevan. The film has been shot at Kargil and nearby areas in Kashmir. This has given the film a real militiary outlook. The story is about the Pakistan invasion in kargil during 1999. This is Major Ravi's third film, and this time also he didnt put much effort to move out of his favorite way of story tellling. An officer with a unit under him trying to fight against the enemies. He has got all the negative forces against him including not so friendly officers and seniors and also the journalists are there to give him much trouble.
The action starts when the Pakistan army violates an existing treaty which was signed after one of the previous wars. They captured some of the very important posts of the Indian Army and in the film its clearly mentioned that this action was carried after the direct instructions from the then Pakistan Army Chief Parvez Musharaff. India responds to this by sending a command under Col. Mahadevan who has been promoted from Major rank.
As Col Mahadevan takes control of the situation, there is heavy fighting between the two sides. And in the end, as the history says, Indian Army pushes the intruders back to their own land, and captures some of their land too. The last scenes of the film resembles the pictures we saw on the newspapers as India won the kargil war.
The fight sequences are really good, and puts the malayalam film industry above all other regional film industries in technical aspects. But the director has included a number of sentimental situations, which would've suited the course of the film if done in a more professional manner with some good dialogues and actors. An important thing to mention is that the casting of the actors was done well, but regarding the actress, the casting turned out to be tragic. Also we can see the officers talking to other people (including pakistan officers) in malayalam. Eventhough this was meant to give the audience a better understanding of the situation, it has taken away the between the troops of india and pakistan, there was an area where the soldiers at both the posts of India and Pakistan were friends. They shared their amneties with each other eventhough their countries were on war.
The movie lasts for about 2 hours, and during all the situations other than those showing the warfront, the film is boring. But the technical effort involved in this film is superb and the effort taken by the crew is really appreciable.
My Rating : Good (***)
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Thirakkadha (Malayalam - 2008)
A 2008 Malayalam movie starring Prithviraj, Anoop, Priya Mani and Samvritha Sunil in the leading roles. And you can also see poor Nishanth Sagar playing the role of a post throughout the film.
Prithviraj plays the role of an young film director who owns and maintains a cafeteria. Anoop and Priya Mani are also related with the film industry. Anoop plays the role of a superstar, whereas Priya was a leading heroine in the Malayalam film industry who is now nowhere near the limelight.
The story is about Akki(Prithviraj) trying to direct a film based on the love life of Ajay(Anoop) and Malavika(Priya). He gets all the information regarding that relationship from a late director's(Renjith) letters to his wife and his dairy notes. The relationship is like this. Ajay who is the son of a makeup man is working on his first film (Itha oru Manjukalam) in the anti-hero role. The hero is an actor named Sekhar and the heroine is Malavika/Malu. By the end of that film, both of them started a relationship. Things become worse when Malu's mother caught both of them kissing on a park bench in the shooting location on her birthday. After that, her mom never allows her to play the heroine role against Ajay. But later they got married in a register office. After some time (may be months, ie not mentioned), Malu becomes pregnant. But Ajay wants to abort that because he was on the edge of taking his career to higher ends. Eventhough malu was against this idea in the beginning, she later agrees to abort the child for the sake of saving Ajay's career. But later she came to know that during abortion, another surgery was made which made her incapable to become pregnant in the future. This lead them to a split and she become an alcoholist.
After their split, they acted together in another movie after a number of years. At that time, Ajay tries to explain Malu what really happened. But she was not ready to hear. Soon, Malu disappeared from the movie screens and people forgot about her.
Akki decides to make this as a film and Ajay didnt want Akki to do that story. He tried to play the lead charector, so that he can bring in some changes in the script later, but Akki discards his offer. Later Akki happened to find out Malu. But by that time, she had got Cancer and she looked terrible now after undergoing chaemotherapy. Akki brings her back home and she is on her death bed. At that time, she came to know from the doctor that they had earlier removed an cancer infected organ from her body during the abortion and it was as a result of that surgery that her ability to deliver children was gone. She actually misunderstood that Ajay did it for selfish reasons and now she understood everything. She insists Akki to call Ajay and when he came, she wanted him to take her to the location of their first film location where they first met and their love life started. The film ends with Malu lying in the hands of Ajay telling him that she is afraid to die, on the park bench of Cloud's End, the villa where their first film was shooted.
The film is a good one and the director has picturised the love life between Ajay and Malu in a very beautiful manner. In between, you will be able to see some resemblence with the real life of filmstars like Mohanlal, Mammooty, Kamal Hasan and Sreevidya. And there is enough description about how this superheoism has affected the malayalam film industry. The only part in the film that is not impressive are the songs. They've got really slow songs which can make u feel that time is not moving at all. The climax scene is really touching and take my word, your eyes are gonna be wet in the end if your heart is not so hard. :-)
My Rating : Good (***)
Prithviraj plays the role of an young film director who owns and maintains a cafeteria. Anoop and Priya Mani are also related with the film industry. Anoop plays the role of a superstar, whereas Priya was a leading heroine in the Malayalam film industry who is now nowhere near the limelight.
The story is about Akki(Prithviraj) trying to direct a film based on the love life of Ajay(Anoop) and Malavika(Priya). He gets all the information regarding that relationship from a late director's(Renjith) letters to his wife and his dairy notes. The relationship is like this. Ajay who is the son of a makeup man is working on his first film (Itha oru Manjukalam) in the anti-hero role. The hero is an actor named Sekhar and the heroine is Malavika/Malu. By the end of that film, both of them started a relationship. Things become worse when Malu's mother caught both of them kissing on a park bench in the shooting location on her birthday. After that, her mom never allows her to play the heroine role against Ajay. But later they got married in a register office. After some time (may be months, ie not mentioned), Malu becomes pregnant. But Ajay wants to abort that because he was on the edge of taking his career to higher ends. Eventhough malu was against this idea in the beginning, she later agrees to abort the child for the sake of saving Ajay's career. But later she came to know that during abortion, another surgery was made which made her incapable to become pregnant in the future. This lead them to a split and she become an alcoholist.
After their split, they acted together in another movie after a number of years. At that time, Ajay tries to explain Malu what really happened. But she was not ready to hear. Soon, Malu disappeared from the movie screens and people forgot about her.
Akki decides to make this as a film and Ajay didnt want Akki to do that story. He tried to play the lead charector, so that he can bring in some changes in the script later, but Akki discards his offer. Later Akki happened to find out Malu. But by that time, she had got Cancer and she looked terrible now after undergoing chaemotherapy. Akki brings her back home and she is on her death bed. At that time, she came to know from the doctor that they had earlier removed an cancer infected organ from her body during the abortion and it was as a result of that surgery that her ability to deliver children was gone. She actually misunderstood that Ajay did it for selfish reasons and now she understood everything. She insists Akki to call Ajay and when he came, she wanted him to take her to the location of their first film location where they first met and their love life started. The film ends with Malu lying in the hands of Ajay telling him that she is afraid to die, on the park bench of Cloud's End, the villa where their first film was shooted.
The film is a good one and the director has picturised the love life between Ajay and Malu in a very beautiful manner. In between, you will be able to see some resemblence with the real life of filmstars like Mohanlal, Mammooty, Kamal Hasan and Sreevidya. And there is enough description about how this superheoism has affected the malayalam film industry. The only part in the film that is not impressive are the songs. They've got really slow songs which can make u feel that time is not moving at all. The climax scene is really touching and take my word, your eyes are gonna be wet in the end if your heart is not so hard. :-)
My Rating : Good (***)
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