Rasatanthram

//Director:Sathyan Anthicaud // Producer:Antony Perumbavoor// Cast: Mohanlal,Meera Jasmine,Bharat Gopi, Siddique, Innocent, Jagathy Sreekumar // Music: Ilayaraja // Lyrics: Girish Puthencherry //Screenplay: Sathyan Anthikkad //


You guys expect a lot. But when you walkout as the credits roll up, I am not sure if you could be satisfied with what you got.

For any movie, the base is a story or one-line. It’s the foundation on which the movie is built up. If its not strong enough, sure, whatever u build above it, will collapse, even if you support it with national award winning actors, pull in all the comedians and coat it with family sentiments.

Premachandran(Mohanlal), is a carpenter, living with his father(Gopi). He is supposed to be an expert in his work (what did u expect, after all he is the hero if the movie, right ? )

His colleagues, Innocent and others love him much.

Premachandran, Once sees heroine, naked(?) taking bath. I don’t know why they always do this shot. Take 100 movies and in 10 of them, the hero sees his heroine in her birthday suit first ! In the past, Mohan lal has seen other heroines too nude, Remember Indraja in “Ustad” ?

He then finds out that she is a poor Tamil girl, Kanmani, working as a maid in a rich house, often ill treated. He saves her from suicide and she ends up dressed as a boy, and living among others who never suspects her to be girl. Wait, wait.. I will agree that there are a few girls who can dress up as a man and go unnoticed. But Meera Jasmine ? No way!

Mean while the police hunts for the girl, and a local Romeo, is under arrest. He ‘confesses’ to the police that he has send that girl to Tanjavoor. That’s only piece in the movie which is humorous.

But before long, the police find out about the drama and in the court Kanmani says that I am not forced and would like to live with the Hero.

That’s all.

Producer: But its only 1 hour now!
Director: Hmm.. let me see we will add some flashback

Director brings in the past of the hero being in jail for a murder case. (of course, he didn’t commit it ! Hello, our heroes are soo nice that they can’t do any sin.)

Producer: okay some 20 more minutes gone. But we need more!
Director: we need some sentiments. Let’s try the angle of land recovery and the houses of poor people being demolished for development. You know it works well with the masses!
Producer: But the Hero’s house is not a set! The real owners will kick our asses!
Director: No, No, we will cut before that.

The houses of premachandran and his neighbors are demolished.

Producer: 1.40 hours. What do I show the people for the rest of the time? Your old movies ?
Director: How about some old people neglected in the society? I tried that in my last movie, manassinakkare, and it worked well.
Producer: what ever! I need a two and a half hour movie!

Cut to the old age home, sentiments.

Producer: Fine, Its hardly 2 hours now.
Director: wait, I have a few aces up my sleeve! You saw my movie, Veendum chila veettu karyangal ? In that I have used this, Rich bro and sis of the hero, ignoring the parents, but the hero, though poor, takes care of them. How does that sound ?
Producer: Great ! do it !

The Hero has a brother and sister who lives their own high profile lives in the society. But they are rich but our hero is rich in love. The hero is not invited for his bro’s daughter’s marriage ! Cry, audience, cry !

Producer: No one would cry for such a simple reason.
Director: okay, lets take the 19^th adavu !

The heros father passes away, peacefully.

Producer: Wow ! that’s good ! now they will cry.
Director: You bet !
Producer: but aren’t your movies known for comedy ?
Director: ooops ! I forgot ! Do you have jagathy’s phone number ?

Jagathy comes in as muraimaman of Kanmani with intentions of marrying her.

By that time the hero realizes that the only one who loves him in this world is Kanmani and marries her.

Shubham !

I told you, you expected a lot. But you will be disappointed in this.

No story no movie !
The director should be made to write this imposition 1000 times.

But there are a few good points in this movie, the music by Ilayaraja is soothing and cool as the village breeze. The plain and simple life of the villagers. The chemistry between Mohanlal and Gopi. The camera that captures the beauty of the locations.

Watch at your own risk, and don’t forget to tickle yourself when you want to laugh.

‘Rasatanthram’ rating: 4/10

Chintamani Kola Case

The hero, Lal Krishna Viradiyar, aka Suresh Gopi, is a criminal lawyer, He not only lets the criminals go scot free from the law, but follows them and kills them the same day !
Intelligent, i should say, he makes money by appearing for them and also makes sure that the justice is done, by killing them!

Chintamani Kola Case portrays Suresh Gopi in the lead role, a character with some sides of a psychopath. (As in any Malayalam movie, there has to be explanation for everything. why is the hero a psychopath? Oh .. that’s because he witnessed his teacher being brutally killed when he was a kid. problem solved !) He quotes from the holy books at any given time and preaches of cosmic law. The Hindu symbols, slokas, rudraksha, and the multicolored threads, are in place, typical of Shaji Kailas movies.

He kills two people who have committed heinous crimes in the start of the movie, with a lavish overdose of special effects. I wouldn’t be wondered if the special effects guy billed right next the hero or the director. He had a truck load of work to do. I wouldn’t mind being killed by someone, but all the verbal torture about the cosmic law, and the special effects are unbearable.

Cut to the good old village girl, who gets admission to the "new evil" in the kerala society, self financed private colleges. There a gang of 9 girls, overly colored, ready for anything girls are waiting to strike against the village belle. Those mirchi girls reminded me of the masks we use to scare children, simply lacking life and believability.

They rag her, to an amount less than I, or anyone who has gone into a professional college, have personally experienced. But the poor girl is so ‘feather touch’, that she decides to leave the college. She is found murdered a few days later.

Enter the hero as the lawyer for the suspected mirchi girls. What happens then is unbelievable. Not even in a movie.

Its a typical Shaji Kailas movie, with all the unwanted cuts, special effects and woosh-swoosh.
The movie was made in a hurry, for they didn’t even have the time to check the spellings of the titles or the audio video synchronization.

The story, inspired by the likes of Anniyan and other random stuff, is made up from the news paper cuttings with serious loop holes and too sloppy. The characters are too overly colored and hyped up which creates nausea. Many characters are completely unwanted and just pulled in for just a scene and few punchy dialogues. (Kalabhavan moni, Vani Vishanath, Rekha etc..). Suresh Gopi goes over board, by heights of over acting, however you try to explain it with his psychopathic nature.

The music is a torture with remixed versions of "asato ma sat gamaya" and other slokas. No aspect of the movie is above the mediocre level.

I will resort to a Tamil phrase, to describe this movie, for want of a better usage. "Romba ovar !"

Chintamani Kola Case Rating : 3/10

Malamaal Weekly

Hmm.... Well if you go to theatres without much expectations than to see an average sitcom over lot of popcorns and coffee, you wouldnt be disappointed as long as your expectations are low enough.

This is about a bunch of poor people from a poverty stricken village in north india, haunted my the money eyed Thakurani. The local drunkard, wins a lottery of One Crore and dies in the shock of the news. Others gather around to trick the lottery inspector and whisk the money off, giving rise to many a comic scenes.

I am almost sure the story is flicked off from somewhere, yet i dunno from where, you know, someone needs to show the remake raja, priyadarshan, how to shoot movies first. Only after that the mallu director adopts the movie and remakes it.

A few things that you can always expect in a priyadarshan movie- great sets, beautiful cinematography, and an item number. The same is true with Malamaal weekly too.

I have seen a few other movies made by Priyadarshan, and this one narrowly misses the worst spot to garam masala. You dont need a director of the proclaimed status and calibre of Priyadarshan to make a movie like this !

In the acting front, Paresh Rawal and Ompuri.. only because of these two guys i didnt walk out half way through the movie. Innocent, (its a noun, not an adjective !) a wonderful comedy actor from malayalam, is wasted and is struggling to fit in. Blame the bad dubbing !

so, to conclude, if you just want to laugh at your own tastelessness in selecting movies to watch, go watch this one !

Okay from now on a rating system is in place. Its on a scale of 10. 10 being the best and 1 being the worst, as if you didnt know it.

'Malamaal weekly' Rating: 3/10