Banyan blah If there’s a lesson you take away from watching Aalamaram , it’s that you must not let promotional material mislead you. The poster, for instance, has the title in menacing red font with a bare banyan tree in the background, leading you to imagine that you are in for a horror film. The…

Let’s run away There is little that is credible about Theriyama Unnai Kadhalichitten. The heroine, in an introduction scene to establish her quirky cuteness, is shown rising out of stagnant rainwater on her terrace. Presumably, the rain conspired with the terrace’s poor drainage facility to form a swimming pool of sorts. Karthik (Vijay Vasanth), a…

A tale of two halves The setting is the true hero of Madras . Small apartments with colourful plastic water pots and old TV sets, a dusty playground lit up with yellow lights, streets swarming with people … you can almost be forgiven for imagining that you sense the teasing aroma of meats as the…

Scared by the clichés What’s truly scary about Aranmanai is how it brings nothing new to the horror genre. A creaky door opening slowly is a cue to the audience that they are to be startled with garish music. In another scene, a person moves but her reflection does not. Yet another scene has the…

Not quite funny In an early scene, police inspector Bhoominathan (Bobby Simha) is asked by the police commissioner (K. S. Ravikumar) to use his famous interrogation technique to get an accused to spill the beans. When you learn that it involves some serious tickling, you know what to expect from the film. Of course, the…