Sudhir Srinivasan

Maa: An extraordinarily sensitive foray into the world of a middle-class family

Maa feels like Sarjun sneaked into your average middle-class family household and shot them without their knowledge.

Nimir: Udhayanidhi Stalin emerges unscathed, the film not so much

But for Nimir to be a truly great remake, the setting needed to feel more real, its characters more alive. Here, you never truly feel the spirit of what it is like to be part of such a languorous village.

Bhaagamathie: A clever end urges you to forget insipid beginnings

It’s a tad disheartening when even in a story that has an educated, independent woman at its heart, you need to have her be rescued from a fabricated situation, and later, have a song, in which you get her gaze helplessly at the alpha male.

The Commuter: A tepid end portion puts paid to a fairly intriguing thriller

It’s a Liam Neeson film, and so there’s a fair bit of fighting too. But the best fighting in this film is when he’s up against his instinct to accept the job he gets from a stranger.

A fairly enjoyable Robinhood story; NOT a heist film

“It’s a pity because it seemed for a brief while that TSK seemed intent on correcting the weak love angle in Special 26, but then again, despite encouraging early signs, it’s the same old story of the heroine who exists only to pine and worry for the boy. It seems that even Vignesh Shivn is aware of this. He gets her to say, “Adhukku thaane naanga irukkom.” Is he, like Iniyan, trying to attack the system by playing it?”