Pokkiri Raja

An ineffective comedy that leaves you yawning It takes a while for you to grasp that Pokkiri Raja isn’t a serious film. It is even irreverential in parts: its villain has no problems smoking in a temple, its hero and heroine are in a gag that parodies divine possession… you get the idea. It all…

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Chennai’s love for DiCaprio

Immediately after Leonardo DiCaprio won the Oscar, Twitter exploded. At the speed of about 440,000 tweets per minute, according to official reports. That’s just marginally lesser than the number of retweets I get: about one or two per day. Anyway, I’m convinced that a vast number of those tweets came from Indians who, no doubt,…

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Miruthan

An inconsistent ‘zombie’ film with excessive melodrama From the director of Naaigal Jaakirathai comes Miruthan , or well, Peigal Jaakirathai . They are not really peigal , or for that matter zombies, as was mentioned during the promotions, but simply “patients”, as doctor Renu (Lakshmi Menon) puts it. You see, these are not undead people,…

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The hateful five

Films are intimate in a way that few experiences in life are. Is it any surprise then that the fiercest arguments and the most laborious of discussions are often about them? Criticism of one’s favourite films is often looked at as an attack on oneself; how often have we seen people defending films passionately, as…

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Vil Ambu

Good concept, average execution Vil Ambu reminded me a lot of my high school maths teacher. It isn’t respective of your intelligence, and seems to prefer spoon-feeding you with obvious information instead. Take the opening fight sequence of Karthik (Sri), for instance. He’s selling Yennai Arindhaal tickets in black (there’s your mandatory Ajith Kumar reference)….

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