While emotionally-driven set pieces invigorate SS Rajamouli’s spectacular period epic, shortcomings in writing spoil the party First things first. SS Rajamouli is a master at transforming the ordinary into extraordinary. He raises the stakes, slows the action, captures the awe of onlookers in a scene… We saw it all in the Baahubali films. This is a rare…

Even at a duration of a little more than two hours, this film seems interminable, trudging from one uninspired development to another Even as early as about five minutes into Maaran, it’s hard to care. The craft seems to belong in a bad TV serial, and the dialogues and performances don’t help either. During these opening…

This Suriya-starrer trades the opportunity to explore sensitive themes for claps and whistles A trauma dark and deep lies at the foundations of the Kannabiran (Suriya) family, an event so permanent and painful that it must be impossible for the family members—Kannabiran, his father (Sathyaraj) and his mother (Saranya)—to have a normal life. The event…

Such films, with their focus on interpersonal relationships, come as a welcome departure from all the star-worshipping Hey Sinamika may be the remake of a remake (the Korean film, All About My Wife (2012), which itself was an adaptation of the Argentinian film, Un Novio Para Mi Mujer (2008)), but all of this really, really doesn’t matter because the dynamics…

Valimai is another case of what-might-have-been, but as it exists, I’ll remember it as a hodge-podge of a few impressive bike stunts I suspect that if in the future I remember Valimai at all, it will be in the form of some hazy visuals of flying motorbikes—something akin to that childhood videogame, Road Rash, in which you tried to…