Righta Thappa-A message for the youth

Intro-

Righta Thappa is scripted and directed by the producer and director of many teleserials R Buvana.I must admit I havent seen any of her ventures before, but I have always been an avid expectant of any debut director in what they may offer for the tam movie world .Janaki Vishwananthan the only other female directors name I have heard of in the recent past in tam movies gave us some truly memorable experiences of movie watching with "kutti" and "kanavu meipada vendum"(truly awesome,if u havent gotten round to watching both these you should).So it was with a great deal of hope that I began to watch this movie;However it neither enthralled me nor left me disappointed..It just gave me a feeling of could have done better.

The Story-For those who have nothing better to do

A simple story line centred around a youth,the lead actor Ramana who is the son of a school teacher played by erstwhile actress Seetha.Hes your normal topper guy in college,with respect for elders and no bad habits.However his acquitances with his no good friends ,soon leads to an eve teasing incident which causes the death of the 4 young girls.Ramana however has no clear picture of whether he was involved in the incident beacause the images of the incident always remain a blur to him since his actions were done in a case of drunken stupor.The story then is,did Ramana create the crime and how it affects everyone around him.Uma plays the lead actors love interest,the lady clearly thrown in to add to the commercial element of an otherwise preachy message for youth movie.

My views-

The only strong point of this entire movie is the message for youth and what it can lead to if one has got bad acquitances.The rest direction,screenplay is quite average with nothing spectacular.Sound Tracks though are passable.Performances are quite strong although Ramanas squeaky voice could have been dubbed to be more machoistic,but I guess that was mainly to emphasise the soft nature of the hero.(Else he would have gone around bashing the rowdies ..thankfully none of which were there).Some of the reviews I read on other sites claimed this to be a family entertainer!!It certainly has no unpleasant scenes but very clearly the story line should suggest to you that this is not a family entertainer but a message oriented movie.

And surely what was ramana(or for that matter the director) thinking when he never says a word about the chances of him being innocent to his mother until he has been sentenced..Duhh..I just couldnt digest the logic.The screenplay could have been made quicker and the movie given a quick ending.Just too many dragging scenes.!


Performance:

Standout performance for me was very clearly Seetha as Ramanas mom,the ever encouraging and dutiful school teacher , and the chirpy lass who plays the role of Ramanas sister.She was especially quite outstanding and played her part without any melodrama.The entire supporting cast has done a good job with very small roles being given to each of them.The heroine surprisingly has almost no role in the entire movie.The honest police officers role(played by a familiar face,but couldnt recollect his name) is wasted.The director could have done something about it.


Climax:--SPOILER dont read if you havent seen and are planning to see

Obviously a feel good ending climax,I always thought that the friends are going to accept that they were the culprits and the hero would be set free just before he was going to be put to the gallows.Well it is done with a slight twist that 2 of the three friends decide to admit and the third guy who refuses to accept the blame dies in an unfortunate accident.Maybe the director was just giving us a feeling of how dire the consequences are for some insensible acts.!!

Kana Kandein -A visual Treat

I wanted to desperately watch this movie for 2 reasons.One the previous movie in which the director KV Anand had worked as a cinematographer (Chellame) was an absolute spectacle with regards to song picturizations and second for a very guilty personal bias that his brother was a former alumni of my alma mater ,the stony brook university.With years of experience in cinematography for leading directors like mani rathnam,I was sure that I wouldnt be disappointed and I certainly wasnt.To me personally, the screen effect was as pulsating as Kakha Kakha and kept me engrossed throughout,but perhaps where it failed in comparison with the former was the logical flow of scenes and certain interruptions and crazy acts by the lead players here and there.

The Story-For those who came in Late
Srikanth is an aspiring Phd candidate whose research is focussed on finding a cheap way to achieve desalination and thus solve the city's water problems.Gopika is Srikanths love interest ,who also has an old acquitance (and the villain of the piece) Prithviraj who promises to help Srikant get the necessary funding to complete his project.Prithviraj is however a loan shark and resolves to unscrupulous ways in order to cheat Srikanth and Gopika of their money.The Story then is how Srikanth manages to outwit the villain and succeed in his project

My Views-
Two strong points of this movie was some key directorial touches and an excellent plot.For instance the fact that this entire movie has something related to water ,is something the director has kept in mind.The amount of time he spends in focussing on little aspects that deal with water is quite stunning.Here are three cases that stand out..The initial scenes which shows srikants younger days show several children playing about gleefully in an area where salt is extracted,second the time when his mother falls down to the ground coinciding with the pot full of water(that is placed on the cycle) also going down and the third the time at which he has no hopes of his project succeding and hes talking with gopika.. ..and where is he talking? inside the veeranam pipes(Now after the late 80s where we used to see the lead pairs meeting in the huge pipes when did we ever see it again).These might not be big details to the common viewer,but I am sure that the director wanted to keep the idea of water in the background throughout the movie in order to drive home the point.Another brilliant scene that I absolutely loved was the love making scene between the lead pairs interspersed by brilliant and naughty euphemisms ,like the bike running over the lemon,the lady tearing apart a packet of mineral water in a crude manner and several other short scenes.That to me was something new in tamil cinema,that had previously got used to earlier showing two birds kissing each other and a long shot of the sun.I liked the anna univ settings which shows the HOD least interested in any of srikanths research and saying it as garbage,the experimental setups in the lab,atleast much more believable than the thing which was shown in udaya(where vijay mixes two test tubes and claims to have achieved nuclear fusion) and in general his thesis presentation where he unleases a lot of technical garble that makes it sound realistic.

The things that I hated,For someone like kv anand who has done a good job in the cinematography of the movie his song picturisations were in absolute bad taste.The seductress guide...now why do u need someone like that to drive home the point,coudnt she just be an experienced professor.This is kind of becoming a trend these days with bipasha in sachin and now this lady in the movie,and ofcourse as even you would have noticed Gopikas sudden decision in the movie to do something stupid .( I wont reveal what it is ,as its a spoiler then to those who havent watched it yet).Ofcourse the item numbers at inopprotune moments were a blot on a good movie

Plot-
Strong plot,not many loopholes,well crafted,as expected since it comes from a famous crime story novel writer.

Performance-
The leads played to their capacity ,the villain was outstanding,(especially when he keeps repeating those lines "It hurts",It increases our ire on him,Vivek was his usual funny self,The HOD is superrr(although a short role, I like his mannerisms more coz its supremely realistic like any other college prof)

Climax-
One of the best climaxes you could possibly see in a tam movie.And no the cops dont come in the end to arrest the villain.Needless to say ,the climax is in the desalination plant.Remember how I said the focus the director was trying to maintain with regards to water the whole movie.He has just kept that till the very end

Intro-Whats this all about

I consider myself a TV and Tamil movie freak.Considering the number of bloggers and other review sites which seem to provide you a complete critique of the movie ,I want this blog to reflect more on the perceptive future wanna be directors opinions about a movie.Normally when I watch a movie,I keep thinking what the director was thinking when he was making a particular scene and whether that idea was clearly translated onto the screen.My idea of watching a movie is totally different from the rest.For Example;I dont care whether the lead actors/actresses look presentable or not.What I look at is for the character that the person was supposed to enact and has he or she done justice to that.I dont really look much into the entertainment value of a movie or whether the script was plausible and stuff like that,(which the other reviewers normally do..incase you are interested in such reviews I suggest bbreviews )

This blog will also reflect any documentary,serial or any significant shows that I manage to watch on television.
Lets hope I will have something interesting to write about on a periodic basis.
I currently have 18 tam movies on my things to watch list.Hope to exhaust them all!