August 15 Review

I saw this movie couple of days back, but had to wait till now to write this, to regain my confidence that I am a person of normal intelligence.

August 15 is a basic school drama type movie. Known plots, obnoxious characters and irritating dialogues.

And remember to leave your intelligence at the door, you won’t need them while you watch this movie. Even the producer, director or script writer never used it, then why would you?

The plot is the same, a good CM, and villains targeting to kill him. The basic problem with this plot is that, it is way too predictable and it takes a genius to present it in an intelligent manner. Think of “Catch me if you can” – it was predictable too, but see how well it was presented. That shows the intelligence and caliber of the movie makers.

As always, there is a person who is given a negative shade so that naturally, the audience will suspect them (In this movie, the director is kind enough to explain the plot in the first 10 minutes in a detailed manner. So that the dumb witted people like me can understand what is happening on the screen. Here it’s established that mafia has hired Siddique to kill the CM). Now this being a typical S.N. Swamy movie, we always know that there will be a twist (if I can call it that) so to confuse us, there is a character( Aravindakshan played by Jagathy), given an extra shade of goodness, so that we may think that he is behind all this.

Then twist on twist, a character in the sidelines is the actual person who planned all this. (Remember Vijayaraghavan from CBI 1?) It could be anyone, you choose- it could be even CM’s wife. Then the hero explains and gives weird reasons why he/she is the villain. We have no choice but to accept it, and wonder the brilliance of the hero and go home happily. Justice is done. Peace. 

But justice is not done to the audience. Remember Manichitrathazhu- the scene in which Shobhana goes for the neck of Mohanlal long before the suspense is revealed- It was shown to us, right before our eyes, but we still missed it. If you were smart enough, we could have caught Shobhana there. There is nothing like that in this movie, Not even a spark.

And the interesting part is the movie makers know all this, but they don’t care. They try to give explanations for minor things like why Mammootty doesn’t wear a helmet and leaves all the major loopholes in the movie open. 

Super hero Mammootty, is the CB CID. He is all in all, knows it all, and just below god in knowledge and status. He doesn’t believe in helmets, rides his Enfield in slow motion, wearing low- waist pants.

Let me ask you- if we know someone is poisoned, what do we do? We try to find what poison it is, its availability and access to people we can suspect. We trust the lab to give us the report. That is their expertise. But not for Mammootty- He searches Wikipedia and finds everything about poison and explains those to the core team. I even saw him typing frantically with Wikipedia page open- maybe he fixed some errors while he was there. 

Then the Villain, obsessed with killing the CM, shoots from a roof top. Ha Ha ! Not with clever Mammootty around. He had put a dummy in the car. ( For once, I wished the dummy was me, it was far better). Then, remember there is a battalion of policemen around him, but only Mammootty with his zoom vision spots Siddiqque, and runs behind him alone. It is my humble request to the director, out of respect to the age of the actors, please don’t make them do all that. 

Yes, the director got some young and fit stunt men to do the jumping etc, But still there is a lot of running around and movements, Can our actors in their present age, do all that?  I wouldn’t take that risk.

In the good old days, Prem Nazir knew a stunt to jump backwards to the top of a building, there are similar scenes in this new age modern flick!

Mammootty also makes the portraits of the Villain, in Photoshop, sticks everything on to a wall and randomly shoots at the images. Suddenly, one portrait comes apart, and that is the villain’s image !

Who is he? The parrot in a cage? To pick a card, that predicts the future?

Mammootty, once says, that he doesn’t need an office for some weird reason, but after a while he is in a beautifully decorated office with some 2-3 beautiful girls from Police CyberCell.  And you know what the Cybercell does? They have hired a few good looking girls, they call up the mobile operator guys and sweet talk to them to give them the required details. WTF? It shows the bloody ignorance and attitude of the script writer and the director. I say, if there is anyone who is working in cybercell, who has dignity, should file defamation case against this movie. What a shame!

Everything takes time in this movie, “it will take couple of days to get the lab report”  “it will take couple of days to get that report” so that the movie can go on for about 2 hours or more. If the reports come fast, which I bet it can, there is no story, there is no movie, and there is no money. In this way, “it will take couple of generations for these super directors and script writers to mature and create something watchable”

The DGPs runs to Mammootty whenever they are confused or tense- like school children to the teacher- Mr. Know it all, consoles them, explains things to them and sends them back clearing all their doubts, but stops short of giving them homework.

And finally, Mammootty kills the villain in a theatre which is on fire. Surprise! Who would have thought?

I think the lead characters name was Mammootty itself. All I saw was Super Hero, Demigod Mammootty on the screen. No character.

And in this election time, the movie says that there are no issues between the CM and the party secretary. But we knew that already. Didn’t we?

Technically speaking

For shooting movies, and to ensure that the shots are steady, there is this new fangled contraption called a camera stand. Pradeep Nair, if you are unaware of this device- it will help you stabilize your shots and offer the viewer a better viewing experience. I got squint eyes and neck is still sprained watching this movie. Completely unnecessary pans and zooms- a typical aspect of Shaji Kailas movies- which was a trade mark of old B grade movies still continues in this. FEFKA or PEPSI, whatever is its name, please pass a resolution to Never ever again give Pradeep a zoom lens. He will play around with it like a kid with a new toy and make the whole experience a painful one. Maybe it’s my eyes, but I am pretty sure that I saw some shots which were completely out of focus. 

Set direction- check any scene, which has a table- there is a pencil holder with multi color pencils. Be it DGPs office, Mammotty's home, CM's home or anywhere. Did the director parallely announce an art competition among the characters?( as a sample see here, here, here and here )

 

The shoddiness of the director is such that, even the false beards of the priest are so evident as if it’s a kid's fancy dress. Havent you guys figured how to fix a beard till now? Come on, really ?

Technically, this movie sucks. (as if it doesn't suck otherwise!) Typical marriage video standard editing/animations, audio and video unsynchronized multiple times, oh and did I say about the shoddy and pseudo action film camera work?

Only one good thing about this movie is that there is no Kavya Madhavan and Dileep and a song in London streets. And hence I generously give .1/2 marks more than Christian Brothers.

August 15 is a cheap, boring and silly high school drama.

August 15 Rating: 2.5/10

Christian Brothers

Direction: Joshiy / Joshee/ Josh-hee or some other funny spelling. Other crew: I don't know, and I frankly don't care, because, they are not even worth mentioning.

Well, we have all seen this- a hundred times. A father of high moral values - misunderstands his son- thinks son is gone rogue -  dad supports the villains -  kicks the son out of his house - later when the villains attack the father, son returns - saves him - father says sorry and dies.

Just to refresh your memory -Sphadikam, Balettan, Chotta Mumbai - a few in which Gentleman Cadet Mohanlal himself starred. So if you have seen any of those, save yourselves from this one, go buy a bottle for the cost of the ticket and enjoy your evening.

Josheeyi, Josh-hee, joshy josh hey Joshey after the hangover of 20-20 is stuck in the same soup formula, mega movies, huge stars(literally!), larger than life roles and cheap slap stick comedy.


Here is the story, or what is left of it: Rtd. Captian Vargheese Mappila (Saikumar) marries off his daughter Jessy (lakshmi Gopalaswamy) to Krishna(Goergootty) who is actually a pimp in Mumbai. Christi(Mohanlal ) who is a decent god fearing, family loving son, as he always used to be in all movies, goes to Mumbai and finds out the dealings of Georgeootty. Georgeootty kills the goondas who were chasing them for no apparent reason, while he could have run away, hands over the gun the Christi and escapes. The police arrests poor innocent Christi(violins in the background, please).  Georgootty doesn't stop there- he goes home, kills Jessy, his wife, again for no apparent reason. The clever villain then goes to Kerala, to Saikumar and tells him its Christi who did all this.

Tang da-dang !

Poor Christi out on bail, returns to his father to explain these things- Then the familiar thing happens-
Christi: "Dad, I have to tell you something"
Vargheese Mappila: "No, I dont want to hear anything! You have spoiled the family's prestige ! you killed my daughter! Get out ! I dont want to see you again!"

Christi: " But dad, its kind of important, you should hear this"
Vargheese Mappila: "No! I dont want to hear it! Get out!"

(well, if you remember seeing such scenes a 2983 times before, starting from Satyan-Sheela movies, its your fault, you don't forget anything, do you?)

Christi, is disappointed as much he would be if he didn't get ticket to a movie, walks out of the house, promising never to return.


That bugger pimp Georgeootty, killed his sister, put him in jail, blamed him for everything, won the trust of dad, and is staying in the same house with your other sister- and Christy cool, simbly walks out.

If you are still with me, there is more- Suraj Venjaranmoodu is irritating( if i had a cook like him, he wouldnt last 2 days at my home- got to admire the patience of the Home Minister(Devan)), Harisree ashokan( his 24th time in the role of a broker) is damn irritating. Guys, wake up! the name of what you did on screen is called cheapness, not comedy. I had a better laugh when I watched clowns in cheap circus tents.


The intro scene of Mohanlal: After the usual build up, there is fire all over the screen- Mohanlal appears and floats horizontally and fires bullets at the audience, then he splits into 3 and joins back again. What an amazing skill! I hear that Mohanlal recently mastered this trick while training with the Indian army.

Then there are the main villains- Vijayaraghavan and co. They just drink scotch whiskey near the pool and randomly stab and kill people.

The average age of all the actors in the movie is 53 years, 9 months.

A fat and old Suresh Gopi, a faint shadow of his former movie image, mouthing rhyming dialogues and marching here and there in uniform.


The fight scenes at regular intervals of 20 minutes are perfectly choreographed by Disco Shanti. No body gets hurt.(nothing spectacular here, go out for a smoke if you like. if you have seen one Mohanlal fight, you have seen it all)

Its a 3 hour 15 minutes of non stop torture. Wait for a few weeks and the theater projector operators will do some editing for you, and hopefully make more sense then what is presently there. I am sure with some lavish use of scissors, we can recycle the rubbish and re create a 10 minute crisp completely different movie. or maybe a couple of them.

Other than to show a bit of skin and also to show us, the stupid audience, that Christi is a man with emotions and is capable of loving and caring, there is Lakshmi Rai, and two completely unnecessory songs.

Dileep blabbers his usual stuff and roams around through screens, well, I don't know what else he did in the movie, other than being a reason to bring in Kavya Madhavan and an irritating song in foreign locations.

This is the kind of nonsense movie these old Jurassic age directors churn out. These are the kind of movies the stalwarts like Mohanlal and Suresh Body choose to act.

And these are the kind of movie that we, poor Malayalees, deserve to see- because its us, and no body else, gave the movie makers the feeling that we will gulp down any sh*t that is presented to us packed in colorful superstar wrappers and tied with the ribbon of over hype.

Enjoy your evening watching the news at home, it will be more entertaining than this movie


Christian Brothers Rating: 2/10