Kishore Kumar - singer with Sweetest voice

Today is the 38^th Death Anniversary of Kishore Kumar one of the greats of Hindi and Bengali film industry.   Kishore had sweetest, and most romantic voice, but when required he used to put lot of energy into the song.   Janeja dhoodh ta phir raha, Om Shanti Om, Ek Haseena Thi, Ek diwana tha were few of the examples of his energy Having come from acting background, he developed himself to be a performer apart from a singer.    Unlike most of his contemporaries, Kishore was the first singer who did not have any classical music background and was not interested in singing and happy being an actor/comedian.   Thanks to the goading by his elder brother and actor Ashok Kumar he was pushed into the singing.   Come Aradhana and sensational hit songs of that movie by Kishore under the music direction of SD Burman there was no looking back.   First backed by SD and his son RD, then followed by all other music directors like Kalyanji Anandji, LP, Rajesh Roshan, he gave some of the top chart busters of 70s and shaken the undisputed position of Rafi, whose career took a bit of dip in 70s compared to 50s and 60s.   Kishore has become the voice of not only Rajesh Khanna, but all other top heros like Dev Anand, Amitabh, Vinod Khanna, Dharmendra and Feroz Khanna.    He extended his range to the next generation younger heros like Rishi (despite stupendous success of Bobby by Shailender Singh), Rakesh Roshan, Vinod Mehra and Sanjay Dutt.

Kishore in collaboration with Kalyanji Anandhi troupe has become the pioneer of live music concerts in India and abroad on a regular basis.   The energy with which he used to sing on stage, moving and dancing all around the stage and singing songs very close to the original studio recording without every referring to the lyrics, was amazing and no one could do so at that time with a possible exception of S P Balasubramanian later on.  

There was never a dull moment when Kishore was around, every singer, music director and actor has so many anecdotes to share of his practical jokes, unending innovative things he used to do spontaneously to lighten up any situation.   He once asked Lata see the lyrics of this movie, `Suno Kaho kuch hua to kya, abhi to nahi, kuch bhi nahi’, when Lata asked what is so special about it, he asked her just imagine if singers sing this song while sitting on a pot.  Such crazy ideas can come to Kishore only.   There were many stories of his troubling producers in a funny manner who have not paid him advance to sing.   He was so particular about his payments and his policy of not singing unless he was paid advance that he refused to sing in a program organised by Sanjay Gandhi unless he is paid his fee and in return Sanjay Gandhi got his songs been banned from AIR and Doordarshan for over an year.  

Though Kishore was not trained in classical music and unlike SPB, he never learnt classical music subsequently also, he sang some of the most iconic songs based on classical ragas like Mere Naina Sawan Badho (Raag Sivaranjani), Kuch to log kahenge (Raag Khamaj) Rim Jhim gire sawan (raag Keeravani) Humain tum se pyar kitna (raag Bhairavi) and many more.

There is no denying that Kishore played a huge role in the super stardom of Rajesh Khanna, later on of Amitabh, Risi, Vinod Khanna and super success of music directors like Rajesh Roshan, RD Burman, LP, Kalyanji Anandji and Bappi Lehari

                 

Apart form being a singer he was great comedian and in super hit comedies viz., Chalti ka naam gadi, Padosan, Half Ticket, Pyar Kiya ja he was simply brilliant, and these movies are enjoyable even now.   Besides singing and acting, he has tried his hands at lyrics, music direction, producing and directing.   But his becoming super successful in singing had forced him to give up acting due to very tight schedules and we lost a brilliant comedian in the process.

Overall Kishore Kumar has given great entertaining to film industry as an Actor first and later on more as a Singer. 

There can be superior or inferior singers (as per one’s own liking) but there could never be another Kishore, a man with sweetest voice and unimaginable energy.

 

S Prabhakar

13.10.25

 

 

 

Review of Kantara Chapter 1

(Kannada movie released in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali, English and Spanish)

The much anticipated and hyped prequel to the highly successful Kantara has released today in many languages and it has, by far, lived up to the high expectations.   The spell bound climax and superb acting and direction by Rishab in Kantara has taken that movie and expectation on prequel, Kantara Chapter 1 to dizzy heights. 

While Kantara is more in line of Pushpa, the cat and mouse game between Hero and the police officer and zamindar trying to grab forest land and exploiting the tribal laborer prequel deals more into the mythological aspect of the forest and forest god and belief of the tribes protecting it. 

There is a egoist king (Jayaram) who lies low after his father gets killed in pursuit of God’s forest, his wayward alcoholic and womaniser son (beautiful played by Gulshan Devaiah) and his pretty daughter (played by Rukmini) who falls for the hero Berme, who is the protector of the tribe and the God’s forest from the king and another tribal gang.  So compared to Kantara, the prequel has a larger canvass, characters and producer directors have gone for a grand scale.  

For some strange reasons Rishab, seems to be inspired by popular movies, in Kantara if it was Pushpa in Kantara 1 it is Maniratnam’s PS1, in the initial over one hour of romance and comical elements.    But its so long that the movie gets dragged till interval and looked going off the track.   But the from action scene at interval bang and entire post interval the movie picks up and races leading to fantastic climax, Rishab pulling another spell bound performance as man possessed.  

What worked for Kantara 1.   In an era, full of CAG and VFX effects, it comes as a great relief that major portion of the movie was shot in stunning locales in forest, the beautiful traditional sets, fire torches and costumes.   The action scenes are lavishly mounted and very well executed under the direction of Indian and foreign stunt directors.    Though there will be unfair comparison with climax action scenes of Bahubali, but the action scenes are well executed in their own right with the budget at their disposal.  

As far as acting is concerned, its director and actor Rishad Shetty stands out.   Though in the first half he allowed Jayaram, Gulshan Devaiah and Rukmini to walk away with meaty roles, he picked himself up post interval and peaked in the climax and again proved that he only could pull off such intense scenes like in kantara.    Jayaram was very good as the King, Gulshan was suited the role of spoilt prince to the T,  Rukmini was beautiful and full of confidence and control.  

Music by Ajaneesh Loknath was top class, the BGM, the use of Kannada folk songs at appropriate places was brilliant.    Cinematography by Arvind S. Kashyap is captivating and infusing life to the proceedings.  

If the pre interval romantic and comedy track is trimmed to 30 minutes and over all if the movie was trimmed to 2 hours 20 minutes it would have been more racy and interesting specially to non-Kannada and non-South Indian audience.    But overall Kantara Chapter 1 has not disappointed and yet another sincere effort by Director and Actor Rishab Shetty.

Thanks to the hype, it was reported to have mopped Rs. 65 crores on the first day and if it can hold it till the first weekend, it could easily make Rs. 400-500 crores and if that happens that will be another success story from Kannada industry at a PAN India level.   

First it was the stupendous success of animation movies Mahavatar Narasimha, last month Telugu movie Mirai, with roots in Hindu mythology and history has made over Rs. 200 crores and now we have Kantara, another movie rooted in Kannada tradition, forest God and tribal believes.   While Bollywood is busy pushing pro-Muslim and anti Hindu narrative, from Zanjeer Deewar days to Pathan,  South India movies are coming out with commercial movies rooted in Hindu mythology, thick and fast and braking all box office records and created it as a trend.    

S. Prabhakar

2.10.2025

 

 

Mahavtar Narasimha

(full length animation movie, available in 5 languages on Netflix)

Mahavtar Narasimha, One of the most talked about movie of the year, fourth highest grossing movie, a full length animation movie, which gave run for money, to multi starrer movies with top stars like Coolie, War2, Chhavva and  Kubera and till date standing as the highest grosser of 2025 in terms of rate of return of over Rs. 350 cr on an investment of Rs. 45 crores.

Its Director all the way : Kudos to the debutant director AshwinmKumar to think of a full length animation movie covering two Avatars of Lord Vishnu that of Narsimha and Varaha and introducing the Hindu mythology to the movie goers specially youngsters and children the way they like the most.  

We all are familiar with stories of Hiranksha, Hiranyakashup, Holika and Bhakt Prahlada.    Presenting the known story in an interesting a racy manner, with fabulous set designs, character caricatures and translating them into animation characters and bring out each scene in a gigantic but a natural way is not an easy task and Director and his VFX team have come out fabulous in that.

Coming of age of Indian Animation movies : till now in India animation is restricted to small, amateurish cartoon characters, mostly catering to children and short movies.     In contrast to that Mahavatar Narasimha is a full length 130 minutes animation movie.    It’s a top quality, rich, colourful, attractive and very impactful movie.   All that coming at a Rs. 45 crore budget is unbelievable considering that most of the Rs. 500 crores plus budget movies are earmarking over Rs. 100 crores for VFX and still coming out horrible stuff like War2.   Right from first frame it’s a visual splendour the entry of Varaha avatar and last 20 minutes elaborate action scenes are spell bound.    

What Bahubali has done to PAN India big budget movies and cross over movies, Narasimha will do it to Indian animation movies and more mythological subjects being presented in this format in an attractive and glossy fashion at lesser budgets.   It is always a risk to take established actors for mythological subject, barring NTR top stars in all languages struggle to shake off their image and get into the skin of the mythological roles.   We all have seen what a disaster Adipurush turned out to be though it has bankable star in Prabhas, Saif and Kriti.   The half animation and half normal movie tanked immediately after the release of teaser itself.   There were many scenes where audience will be awestruck at the way the scenes was conceived, designed and executed to perfection.

Decent music :  Besides VFX and direction, the other significant contribution has come from music director Sam SC, back ground score is very good, couple of songs and devotional recitation is pleasing.   But being mythological movie I would have expected more recitation and few more devotional songs and bhajans from Prahlada character.    Movie goers, specially Telugu and Tamil from my generation have memories of AVM’s Bhakt Prahlada (starring legendary SVR, Anjali and Baby Roja Ramani) and its haunting melodies.

Trend setter: Good or bad, the movie producers are known to follow the trends, more of course the later.   But I have no doubt that the stupendous success of Mahavatar Narasimha  will set a trend for other to follow and come out with more and more mythological themes so that our children and youngster can stay in touch with our mythology.    The producers (who made Kantara – the super successful Kannada movie), have already announced other Avatars of Lord Vishnu viz., Parasuram, Krishna, Ram and Kalki in that order.  

It’s a movie not to be missed by any class of movie goers of any age.   Strongly recommended for elders to show to their children so that they develop some interest in Hindu mythology and the great learnings from it.

S. Prabhakar

20.9.2025

 

 

REVIEW OF THE BANGAL FILES – 

STARK AND HARD ON THE FACE STUFF

After facing lot of uncertainty and hostility and pre-release criticism and allegations of being propaganda film and allegations of an attempt to divide the country on communal lines, Bengal files has ultimately released in theatres and I rushed to watch it before it is being banned and pulled out of theatres by coercive measures

Whether it is Tashkent Files, Kashmir Files, Kerala Files or Bengal Files in India or many Hollywood movies made from 60s to 90s on the barbaric acts and genocide by Hitler, Idi Aman and many more dictators, there should be freedom to show the truth.   Covering them up, for whatever reasons, for so many years, and being in self denial mode did not serve any purpose and the gen-next youth have a right to know the historical facts how so ever gory they may be.   Burying them deep and letting the next generations not know it, in itself is a great disservice which has been done for decades.

Coming to elite media, socialites, film personalities like half expression John Abraham that such movies are dangerous and whip up passions and will divide the country on communal lines, I feel that they have their own reasons and compulsions to say so due to their political leanings, but average movie goer like me doesn’t have any.

One may disagree with the sources of research done by writer director Vivek Agnihotri, some cinematic liberties that he might have taken, have serious reservation on the most graphic and gory manner of depicting bloodshed and extreme violence unleashed on the innocent who were hacked to death, beheaded, women were raped and hung with hooks by their breasts, people were burnt live, one sardar hands tied from both side by ropes and pulled by motor cycles on either side to tear him into two parts and dragged on the roads in the market etc., but no one can deny the carnage that took place in Bengal at that time on the Direct Action Day on 16^th August, 1946 and the Noakhali riots.   

When I saw Kashmir Files, I thought Agnihotri has just touched the subject and did not go in to depth of the incidents or issues, but in Bengal Files its `no holds barred’.   He deals with the subject in great details and allowed the subject to sink and shake the audience.   Audience can feel the pain and anguish for what the victims had gone through and cannot help the feeling of stomach churning, reeling and vomiting sensation.    I experienced this earlier while watching Schindler's List.

Coming to the movie, I always feel that for a movie to be complete and successful, apart the story, screenplay, direction casting is very important.     As far as casting of Bengal Files is concerned Agnihotri was bang on.    Kudos to him and his casting director for picking up best actor for each of the over dozen important characters of the movie.   In the recent past I haven’t seen such a perfect casting where over 12 actors gave excellent to brilliant performances.  

 

 

The actors who put up brilliant performance in the same order are

 

• Saswata Chatterjee as Sardar Husseini, MLA.    – a highly talented Bengali actor who showed glimpses of his brilliance in Hindi movie Kahani as menacing contractor killer.   In this movie also he had a small 4-5 scenes role but two scenes where he encounters the special CBI officer, he was so cool, composed, polished but menacing.   I wonder why it took so much time after Kahani where too he was very impressive, to get another look at by Bollywood.   He deserves more and meaty roles in Hindi and other language movies.
• Darshan Kumar as Shiva Aloke Pandit, the special CBI Officer – Handled the pivotal central character very well showing his anguish and helplessness, especially when he goes to arrest the MLA and gets slapped and forced to apologise before MLA son and wife.
• Pallavi Joshi as Maa Bharati / aged Bharti Banerjee – extremely complex role of a dementia patient and the only surviving member of the dreadful incident.    This is a role of lifetime for any one and she gave performance of her life time.  
• Namashi Chakraborthy as Gulam Hussaini – this character does most of the killings by hacking, he was menacing and villainy oozing out his face, eyes and body language.   He exhibited not only ruthlessness but projected each killing as a souvenir
• Simrat Kaur as young Bharati Banerjee – she is beautiful, expressive and gone though all shades of happiness, sad, anguish and helplessness in equal measure.   Though a Kaur, she looked like a Bengali girl.
• Eklavya Sood as Amarjeet Arora – He looked like real Sardar and brilliant in his body language and rebellion expressions.  He is comfortable in soft romantic expressions and fiery aggression.
• Sourav Das as Gopal Patha – though had a lesser screen time, his acting was explosive and impactful
• Dibyendu Bhattacharya as  Roy Chowdhary – matured and dignified role
• Mithun Chakraborty as Madman Chatur – a 3-time national award winner, after working in over 50 good for nothing movies, he picks up one good role and exhibits the better actor in him.   This movie is one of such movies with an unrecognisable make up and body language.
• Anupam Kher as Mahatma Gandhi – hardly had few scenes and expressed the self-imposed helplessness of Gandhi very well and got hooting in the theatre – a clear disapproval of Gandhi’s inapt handling of such a serious situation when thousands of Hindus were killed. 
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• At 3 hours and 20 minutes the movie is very lengthy if it is trimmed by atleast 30 minutes it would have become crisp and racier.    Both current day situations and flash back to 1946 are dragged a bit.    May be writer director Agnihotri might have been tempted too much by his research that he over filmed and stretched the movie .  

Overall it is most hard-hitting movie by Agnihotri, despite whatever the criticism and accusations, he did a very good job and we should appreciate him for bringing to the light the unfortunate carnage of the Noakhali riots which were kept under wraps by the Government, media and movie makers.  We need more such brave Director and more such movies.

If you are not pseudo secular, elite socialite or partisan, and have the stomach to withstand stomach churning and extremely violent scenes even on women and children, then you must catch up the movie.

I give 4 out of 5 for brilliant acting by so many actors and excellent direction and the guts of Vivek Agnihotri

 

S. Prabhakar

8.9.2025

 

Kanappa – the worst Telugu mythological movie ever made  

At last I watched Kannapa on OTT, to see how badly it is made after my first unsuccessful attempt to watch it in theatre on 4^th day in Vizag when the show was cancelled as atleast 10 tickets were not sold.   Honestly it took huge efforts to complete it in 3-4 instalments.

Though Mohan Babu has pumped in huge budget of over Rs. 200 crores on non-bankable Son Vishnu’s movie and packed it with top stars from various industries like Akshay Kumar, Sarat Kumar, Mohan Lal and our own Prabhas as a safety net.   Right from the start of the movie, Manchu family has given it huge publicity in social media and the trolling batch was equally active.   Ever since the stupendous success of Bahubali and RRR, every Telugu producer and every director feels that big budget and over the top vfx are the only factors which makes a movie a sure shot success.    But what they forget is that every movie needs to have a good story, screen play and capable director to come out with an engaging and racy narration.    Kannappa lacked all of these and added to that pathetic vfx which is as bad like pre vfx period 1980s quality.   So much father son publicity was given about shooting New Zealand and what we had is a huge green open land which you can find anywhere in Shimla (specially Dalhousie) and Dharmashala.  

The challenge while making any mythological or historical movies like Kannapa is the basic story from the available sources is very thin, the develop that into a full fledged movie some interesting and acceptable side story has to be developed, and have all ingredients of romance, comedy and ofcourse action.   There is  not much material about Kanappa,   Not seen Kannada Rajkumar’s Kalahasti mahatyam, but Krisham Raju made a very interesting movie `Bhakta Kannapa’ sticking mainly on Kannappa theme and an excellent comedy track by Rao Gopal Rao and Mada and super hit songs that brought lot of name, fame and money for Krishnam Raju.  

But in Kannapa for major portion of 3 hour long movie, it was more of irrelevant tribal gang wars and boring and very modern looking and cheap romantic track.  Akshay is looking like a cartoon character as Lord Shiv, Mohan Lal hardly had one scene, Mohan Babu is not very effective, the only saving grace is Prabhas, but he comes too late after almost 2 hours, seasoned senior actor Sarat Kumar too is good.   The movie goers like me who have seen NTR and Character Actor Balayya as Lord Shiv cannot digest AK as Shiv.   The actual Kanappa story starts after 2 and ½ hours run time and that too was handled very badly.    The Mohan Babu may feel that it is the best performance of Vishnu till now, but even his best efforts are pedestal.   The image of Mohan Babu as anti-brahmin and lampooning them in every second film, has not help their cause when they wanted to make a movie on mythological subject.  

Director Mukesh Kumar Singh, who shot into popularity with some popular TV serials, is not mature enough to handle such subject with such budget.    Apart from the thin story line and lose screenplay, his handling of VFX and action scenes is really inadept.   The action scenes over the bridge (which resembles the action scene of Magadheera) and the giant spider scenes are so poorly executed that what was created by Vithalacharya in 1960s in NTR movies like Jagadekaveeruni Kadha, Gulebakavali Kadha etc, looked far better and executed.    Music – both songs and BGM is below average.

Rather than Vishnu, the movie should have been made with Prabhas, with good script focusing more on Kanappa, Kalahasti and related stories with more talented director handling the project.   Then it could have had good chance of hitting bull’s eye.  

The bombing of Kanappa could be the last straw on Mohan babu back.   Neither his films nor his children’s films are running at the box office and he has blown large portion of what he has earned over the last 40 years.   He should think of making a very late come back in villain roles like Jagapati Babu, which are now going to Bollywood under employed stars like Sanjay Dutt and Bobby Doel.  Mohan babu is far superior actor than them.   

S. Prabhakar

 

Review of Tamil movie Coolie

(Released in multi languages PAN India)

 

Much hyped and much anticipated Coolie hit the screens on 14^th August, 2025, whose pre-launch publicity reached feverish pitch with stars from different languages viz., Nagarjuna (from Telugu industry), Aamir (from Hindi Industry), Upendra (from Kannada Industry), Soubin (from Malayalam Industry) joining Rajni and star director Lokesh Kanagaraj and going gaga about Rajni and his charisma and mania.   Going by stupendous success of Kamal’s Vikram, just ignoring the moderate hit of Leo, the expectation from this Rajni and Kanagaraj was sky high, but it turned out to be  extremely boring and disappointing stuff and will end up as most mediocre film by Lokesh Kanagaraj along with Leo.  

The challenge with Rajni and his directors for the last decade or so, being aged (74 years) he cannot play roles of around 40s and 50s years old and his fanatic fans are not ready to accept him in any other role than action hero and story writers and director struggle to come up with action movie in that age bracket.   So they are forced to churn out the same stuff, with same looks (the half grey beard), father or uncle role, a daughter or son and his issues with them, strong antagonists and support from top stars from different languages whether it makes any meaning or not.  

Its no different in Coolie.   The thin story line is something beaten to death for decades - hero taking revenge for killing of close one (this time a friend of over 30 years), and dragging it for 3 hours with no twists or turns.  

Lokesh Kanagaraj who developed Kamal’s, Sethupathi and Fahad roles so brilliantly in Vikram failed miserably to develop definite and impactful roles for Rajni, Nagarjuna, Upendra and Aamir.   So much was written about Nagarjuna antagonist role but it remained a half cooked half backed role, doing nothing bur boozing, smoking and brooding.  He is shown as a sophisticated villain, which he carried well, but with his weak voice and dialogue delivery Nagarjuna can never be a menacing villain.    Upendra was used in couple of action scenes towards end and Aamir Khan role is a straight lift and replica of Rolex cameo in Vikram done by Suriya.  But the surprise package has been Malayalee actor Soubin, who had meaty and lengthy role after Rajni.  Though he is short, bald unlike someone who looked likely to carry a pivotal role, but he got into the skin of the role and delivered a brilliant performance, whether its his comic touch, innocence, funny dance or menacing villainy – so many shades in one role.

Lokesh has so badly run out of ideas, that he pushes a stupid narration of the main villain who holds hundreds of labour at the port and does all kinds of illegal activities right from smuggling to organ racket, finds difficult to dispose of dead bodies of those killed by him and hires Satyaraj who makes an indigenous chair as a mobile electric crematorium.  For no rhyme or reason Satyaraj gets killed and for some time a suspense was maintained about who killed him.  After lot of emotional drama (a trauma for audience) between Rajni and Shruti Hassan (daughter of Satyaraj), who keeps insulting him due to misunderstanding, Rajni shadowing her to protect her from, the movie moves towards an uninspiring climax action scene full of blood and glory. 

There are overdoses of action scenes, which  the senior citizen Rajni is finding difficult to carry.   As always, he stands and keep waiving his hands and the goons keep flying all over breaking glasses, windows and all and sundry.  How long can such stuff be served as `action scenes’.   The less the better about his acting which is stereo typed specially for the last 10-15 years. Nagarjuna, Satyaraj (who did Kattappa role in Bahubali), Sruthi did their best, but they were let down by poorly written roles.   Soubin was at his best, but I felt as the role is written for Sethupathi, not sure whether he was ever considered for the role or not, but he would have taken the role to next level.   But Soubin has not disappointed, and this movie will improve his stock not only in Malayalam industry but in other south India industries too.

Anirudh music was enjoyable, specially the group song picturized on Rajni and the item number by Pooja Hegde.   BGM, specially in action scenes, was good. 

Overall, it’s a disappointing stuff from talented a highly rated Lokesh Kanagaraj.   But whether movie is good or bad, it may not make much difference to box office fortunes of Coolie like any other Rajni movie.   It is already reported that it had a fantastic 1^st day collection of over Rs 170 crores.   Even if it holds the opening day hype in the long weekend it may make over Rs. 500 crores by the first week end and bring profits to the producers.  

Go to watch if you are a diehard fan of Rajni, and also Nagarjuna and Soubin

S. Prabhakar

16.8.2025

 

Review of War2 (Hindi version)

by S. Prabhakar

The much awaited YRF Spy Universe movie War2, starring the two biggest stars from Hindi and Telugu film industry for the first time, which in its self is a sensation, has not set the silver screen on fire as expected and the blame for the same lies squarely at the doorsteps of director Ayan Mukerjee, not a name you can associate to handle such mega stars with mega budget at his command.

It is no less than a crime to dish out a movie which looks like any ordinary action movie of 1990s or 2000s when you have top action heros and mega budget at your disposal.  

What went wrong with War2 – almost everything

Story screen play and direction: War2 has wafer thin story line, very loose screenplay ( Shridhar Raghavan and Abbas Tyrewala) and a thoughtless direction by Ayan Mukerjee which has nothing to write about.     There are no emotional scenes, gripping and heart pounding action scenes and story moves on predictable lines and keep dropping at many places despite best efforts by both Hritik and Jr NTR to lift it up by their respective brand of acting.  

The first part of the movie has more action scenes and moves bit faster but after interval bang, when we are taken on flash back to children hood of both heros and their bonding and then some 10 years back for some (un) romantic scenes between Hritik and Kiara the movie gets on to your nerves, towards climax the movies lifts a bit but never really flies high

If one wants to know the difference between a mediocre director (Ayan) and great director (Rajamouli) just compare the introductory scene of heros of RRR and War2.    We all have seen such an elaborate and well-crafted action scenes were mounted in RRR to introduce Ramcharan and Jr NTR and both looked brilliant.   

In War2 Hritik was introduced with a samurai style action scenes set in Japan.   First the art director made a mess of the red colour set, we saw many chine movies in 1990 with far less budget having great and eye-catching red colour backdrops.   Action choreography of that scene was so ordinary, neither Hritik nor other stuntmen moving swiftly.   How I wish the director and stunt director have watched few videos of dozen of Ninja movies released in 1990s or Tony Jaa Ombak (1, & 2) or The Wrath of Vajra and borrowed the fantastic action scenes designed by the stunt directors of those movies

As if it is not enough Jr NTR intro scene was much worser than this, the lighting was dim, unlike in RRR a shirt less Jr. NTR wasn’t given a proper elevation overshadowed by poor vfx while landing on to a ship.   The action scene that follows is equally pedestal. 

The same trend continued in the entire movie.    Very well designed and executed Action scenes (minimum 5 to 6) is what make action movies watchable.   Right from Enter the Dragon to most of Jakie Chan movie, James Bond and MI series or any Arnold and Stollone movies, we recollect each movie for the action scenes which we relished.   There is not even a single such scene in War2 which you can appreciate that it is well designed and executed.

VFX : with the type of technology that is available and the sort of budgets producers pump in (reported to have been made at approximately Rs. 400 crore budget), sky is the limit for imaginative VFX affects to make the action scenes and movie rich.    The VFX of this movie is so poor, both in imagination, designing and execution, movies released 20 years back, or movie with one tenth of its budget (like Narasimha which creased ripples for its special effects though made at a budget of just 4 cr) looked far better.   The train chase scene, the action scene on top of the aero plane looked pedestal and childish.   Both heros and few goons are shown fighting on top of an aeroplane flying at some 500 kms per hour, their hair are intact, and their faces are as stable as if they are riding a cycle, they were running, flying and sliding from one end to the other end of plane holding to a small rope – can there by anything more ridiculous than this in the name of action scene.   How I wish the director and action director have seen (and copied) the climax scene of Jakie Chan Armour of God where in the climax scene Jackie and dozens of  goons stage an action scene when a huge turbine fans kept switch off and on, not only their hair, cloth keep flying, the entire skin on face of Jakie displaces due to use of heavy blowers by stunt director, that much effort goes to make the action scene look real.   

Same goes with car chase scene (far inferior to what we have seen in many Bond movies some decades back) and speed boat chase (the boat chase Scenes in Face Off and Puppet on the Chain released some 30 to 40 years back without any VFX effects looked better).

We have some home-grown top stunt directors, foreign stunt directors like Peter Heins and Kicha settled permanently in south and Solomon and other US stunt directors whom Rajamouli engages effectively.    If director of an action movie fumbles in picking up right kind of action director and design well thought action scene and cannot extract best out of them, then he is not the right candidate to make an action movie.   Indian stunt coordinator Sunil Rodrigues Hollywood veterans Spiro Razatos are credited as Stunt directors of War2

Make Artists and Stylists: This is one field where we made tremendous progress in movie making and old and aging stars like Rajnikant, Kamal, and Chirajeevi and Nagarjuna are transformed by the make up and stylists professionals fantastically.     But in War2 the guys who did make up styling job of Jr. NTR have done a pathetic job, for most of the movie specially first half Jr NTR is looking horrible, dusky, sickly and worn out, neither his hair style nor his look are anything to write about.   There are dozens of professionals in Telugu industry who present Mahesh Babu, Prabhas, Allu Arjun, Ram Charan and Jr NTR himself so well movie after movie.    Jr. NTR looked far better in Telugu movies like Temper, Brindavanam and Janata Garage.    Special efforts and attention should have been paid to this aspect specially when he is pitted against a Greek God like Hritikh. 

Music and Dance : Pritam has never been in top bracket music director and known for giving chart buster music except one or two Punjabi beat numbers.   His music – both songs and BGM score is a total wash out.   Even the song for the much-awaited iconic dance number with two top dancing star is disappointing and has not become popular.  

The choreography of the dance number is also equally poor, both Hritik and Jr NTR are given one dancing movie which they kept repeating.   Both being very good dancers did well but there is no scope in the song or the way the number is designed to exhibits their skills full throttle.    A great opportunity to have a `Natu Natu’ moment has been robbed by elementary director Ayan. 

Acting: Despite all flaw in the story, screenplay, lack of emotional drama and moments, both Hritik and Jr NTR did very well.    Hritik is looking as smart and handsome as ever, though has slowed down considerably in action scenes.   Jr. NTR had an excellent outing, specially he was brilliant in long climax scene and stole the thunder from Hritik in that scene though over all his role is not well conceived.   He did an excellent job in dubbing in Hindi himself without any flaw or south Indian accent and that has lent depth in emotional scenes.   Considering that it is a straight Hindi movie, he should be more careful in selecting subject which show case his acting and dancing skills.    He will be better in the hands of talented directors like Rajamouli, Koratala Siva, Prashan Neel and Trivikram and go for PAN India release of Telugu movies rather than messing up his chances in the hands of pedestal directors like Ayaans.     Next time whenever such mega budget movies are planned with top stars from Hindi and Telugu or Hindi and Tamil the direction responsible be better given to some one like Rajamouli, Prashan Neel, Lokesh Kanagarj or Sandeep Vanga.  

Overall the movie at the most is a onetime watch and I am sure you will return with a feeling that a great opportunity has been lost to make it into a far better engaging and enjoyable action movie with a better story screen play writer and director.  

I, being a sworn action movie buff and grown up on Chinese, Hong Kong and Telugu action movies and have seen hundreds of out and out action movies which are far better than War2 and hence very disappointed than many of you could.

At box office Hritik is a big pull in North and Jr. NTR is a better pull in both Telugu states.  The movie may break even at Rs. 400 to 500 crores but not going to shake the box office specially facing stiff challenge from Rajnikath Coolie, which is packed with stars from all industries.

S. Prabhakar

15.8.2025

 

Review of Telugu movie `Kuberaa’

Gifted Tamil actor Dhanush straight Telugu movie `Kuberaa’ with veteran Telugu actor Nagarjuna and reliable Rashmika released PAN India in five languages, has garnered lot of expectation pre release and to a great extent lived upto that hype.  

Being highly educated (a Master of Science and Master of Fine Arts holder from Rutgers University and Howard University respectively), Talented Telugu writer, producer director Shekar Kammula handles his subjects intelligently and  is known to make impactful and meaning movies mostly with newcomers at shoestring budgets but hits the bull’s eye every time commercially as well as at awards circuits.   In 25 years,  he has won national award once and state Nandi award six times.  

With `Kuberaa’ for the first time he has gone for top stars of Telugu and Tamil industry and jumped into PAN India bandwagon.   But unlike others who fall back upon safe bet of making a masala commercial movie with lot of action and technology, Shekar chose a bold subject on `Beggers’ (probably only the second India movie after Tamil movie ` Pichaikkaran /`Bichagadu  (Telugu version)’ by Tamil actor director Anthony to deal with such subject) and handled it sensibly .  Right through the movie runs on two parallel tracks of a tycoon greed and ambition of channalising over a one lakh crores using Beggers as Benamis and the life and plight of Beggers.  

               

Any top star will be scared by the very thought of doing the role of a crippled Begger, but Dhanush, who doesn’t shun away from experimenting with his roles, took up the challenge and what a brilliant act he did.   Unlike many top stars who apply layers of makeup and fancy costumes which does not go with the character they play, the director and actor Dhanush developed the character looks wise and mannerism wise so natural and close to a real destitute and crippled Begger.   The way he consistently used and kept the crippled hand is remarkable and his empathy about fellow Beggers specially the mortal remains of the dead beggers and his pain and anguish to give them a honourble funeral is very touching.    Owning such a challenging role of a Begger is not an easy task and stock of Dhanush as one of the most gifted actors of Tamil/Indian cinema will go up by few notches after this movie  

After a long gap, Telugu actor Nagarjuna signed up a matured role of a CBI officer hard done by the system and corrupt politicians resulting his landing up in jail.   To get out of jail he takes favour of a tycoon, in return to use his brain in channelising a lakh crore of rupees to the Swiss accounts of corrupt politicians through benami accounts of the Beggars.    He is savvy as a smart CBI officer turned crook and also exhibited emotions very well of being helpless when he comes to know that after transfer of money the tycoon is killing the Beggers engaged and falls apart from them at the end.  He exhibited through his eyes and restrained emotions how he is torn between saving himself and his family and save the Beggers from being killed.    After doing 3 back to back insignificant Hindi movies with top stars, Rashmika got a significant and meaty role and has come back to her elements.   Though the episodes between her and Dhanush lagged a bit, but in many scenes, she stood her ground opposite towering performance by Dhanush.   Jim Sarbh was excellent as a crooked tycoon, and I am pleasantly surprised that he dubbed in Telugu himself and he sounded so good.   Dhanush also dubbed in Telugu for the first time, and it lent authenticity to the role he essayed.  Good to see Dilip Tahil after decades. 

As always director Shekar is in complete control and to a large extent able to hold the attention though every one in the audience felt that at 3 hours 30 minutes its too lengthy and would have been better served if the movie is trimmed by minimum 30 minutes.    With this movie Shekar has proved that not only he can handle top stars, but make them leave behind their stardom and get into the skin of the character as Dhanush and Nagarjuna did.    Though he normally keeps the Telugu nativity in all his movies, in this movie, there were traces of Tamil culture and nativity specially in few dance numbers.   This could be to please the huge Tamil fan base Dhanush commands.  

Music Director DSP (Devi Sri Prasad) has bounced back with a bang with this movie.   What a brilliant Back Ground score he has given, which is most appropriate and lightened up proceeding even when they are lagging and falling down.    Couple of songs specially the song while taking the mortal remains of the Begger in a procession is brilliant.  

Overall a bold and challenging movie and quite engaging.   Worth a watch even if it tests your patience a bit sitting through three and half hours

 

S. Prabhakar

24.6.2025

 

`Thug Life’ – few flashes of brilliance – rest damp squib

In 1987, Kamal and director Mani Ratnam came together and created history with Tamil movie Nayakan, which is a test book on how a classic movie has to be made.    Everything about that movie was brilliant, story, screenplay, fantastic direction by Mani Ratnam and brilliant acting by Kamal Hassan, the lighting cinematography, art direction and as always excellent music by Illayyaraja.    It deservedly won national award for Kamal Haasan as Best Actor and 3 more national awards, and earnt a permanent place in list of Indian classics.   In the last 38 years both Kamal and Mani have grown in their stature and went on to become the most respected actor and director respectively not only in Tamil industry but in India and world cinema.  Many of their movies, Sagara Sangamama, Swati Mutyam, Appu Raja, Chachi 420, Sadma, Bharateeyudu, Dasavataram for Kamal, Anjali, Roja, Bombay,   Geetanjali, Thalapati, Iruvar, Guru and Ponniyin Selvan for Mani Ratnam have not only became big time hits at box office but earned them state, national and Filmfare awards in dozens.   Fans waited so long for them to collaborate and recreate the magic of Nayakan and atlast they came together with ‘Thug Life’ and as can be expected it has generated  very high expectations from their huge fan base, both having mastered their respective crafts in all these years.     But it is utterly disappointing that it turned out to be anything but what you expect from these two geniuses and after watching the movie one feels it would have been better had they not collaborated again and the fans would have lived with the feeling had they came together they would have created the same magic as `Nayakan’

What went wrong with `Thug Life’

Almost every thing.    To begin with it has a very weak and wafer-thin story line.   The screenplay is equally bad.    Firstly the so called Thug character is not at all well developed to an extent of he  instilling fear among other Thugs and forcing them to fear about him and follow him.   The concept of internal bickering among the gang members and plotting the downfall of the gang leader is as old as the film industry itself.    The reason for the betrayal and plotting to kill him by not one or two but four close confidants is not well narrated to justify their act of forgetting son like brother like relations.   As if it is not enough, the way Kamal comes back to avenge and the way he avenges is handled lousily by the director.    I started wondering is the movie directed by the same Mani Ratnam who handled talented actors like Kamal in Nayakan Mamooty and Rajni in Thalapathy and Prakash Raj and Mohan Lal in Iruvur in such sensitive manner and created gripping and memorable scenes.

Coming to acting Kamal has shown flashes of his genius in few scenes and his big and popping eyes have been effectively used.  Silambarasan did an excellent job and not overawed by the colossal presence of Kamal.   Trisha and Abhirami were good in their brief roles.  AR Rehman, a regular feature with Mani Rathnam from Roja days,  has redeemed himself after a long time with brilliant back ground music and couple of hummable songs.   Action scenes are bit of saving grace in this dull movie, full marks to the Stunt directors for using Kamal doubles very cleverly making us believe as if Kamal has done them, and credit to Kamal that he showed the required energy and intensity in the part of action scenes which he might have done to make it look like real, and at his age of 70 years its incredible.    The shoot out scenes in busy streets of Delhi, the climax action scenes are very well picturized and stand out.

Overall it’s a forgettable movie and a movie with which you would not like to associate the names of two greats of Tamil industry Kamal and Mani.    After watching Bharateeyudu2, I said that its high time director Shankar should retire and stop directing movies (which he justified with another dud `Game Changer’) and now I have to say the same to Mani Ratnam, he should stop directing any more movies like Thug Life, if he has nothing better to offer, since we would love to remember him for his Nayakan, Thalapathy, Iruvur, Roja and Bombay.    As far as Kamal is concerned, he still has fire in his belly, and continue to entertain, if he chooses better subjects, his hunger to experiment and do his best has not yet died.  

Strongly recommended to avoid Thug Life to retain the credible image of Kamal and Mani Ratnam which you might have.

S. Prabhakar

5.6.2025

 

    Review of  Hit -3 - The Third Case – Unnatural acting by `Natural Star Nani’

     (Telugu movies released in 4 more languages)

The third movie in the much-acclaimed Hit franchise – HIT-3 turned out to be an average and disappointing affair.   Hit-1 had Vishwak Sen which was a huge hit and remade in Hindi and Hit-2 (by far the best in this series) featured Adavi Seshu, and Hit-3 has a more popular and established star Nani.  Both Hit-1 and Hit-2 had lot of twists and turns and edge-of-the-seat thrills and surprise elements.   But sadly, Hit-3 has none of them, probably having a second rung super star Nani has compelled the director to compromise and not focus on the story and narrative and cater to the growing star status of Nani and its demand.

Hit-3 begins well with the hero, ACP Arjun Sarkaar (not sure why a Telugu character has a Bengali name) himself committing gruesome murders by hanging victims upside down and slashing their throats and enjoying video filming, coolly listening to the Pravachan of Chagati Koteswara Rao Garu (his audio discourses are effectively used at many places in the movie).   After committing the murder, he comes with his team to the crime scene, analyses and appreciates the murderer for being smart and doing a precision job without leaving any traces.    His character of being moody, short-tempered and a cop who uses foul language (holding choicest curse words halfway) has been well built and Nani did well in that part of the movie.   The side story of his funny banter with his father, who enjoys pestering him to get married and not waste time pressing buttons on the laptop, was enjoyable though very brief.    

The movie takes an interesting turn when gruesome murders take place in different cities in different states in a similar fashion and our ACP sets out to investigate every such murder without ever bothering about jurisdictions among different states.  So we are taken on an India trip from Telangana to Rajasthan, Jammu & Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh and a few more states.    While in Jammu, the Dirty Harry type of investigation by ACP Sarkar leads to communal issues with local Muslims holding wild protests against Sarkar.   The movie is tolerable till the interval with our guessing why the hero commits such gruesome murders, does he have a past and psychological issues and many more things.   At the interval bang a small twist is given by revealing that there a all India gang operating which through dark web enrols psycho killers in their group and the criterion for enrolment is committing minimum two gruesome murders film them and upload on to the sight to get admission and our ACP does murders to get admission to bust the gang and that act also is justified by an appropriate Pravachan by Changati

 More than what we predicted the movie to be a routine affair post-interval, the movie takes a free fall post-interval.   The writer-director completely lost steam, and the plot and what we see post-interval is a copy, cut-and-paste job from many Indian and Hollywood movies.   The action moves to the thick jungles of Arunachal Pradesh, where all the psycho killers are invited for an all-India get-together and our hero also makes his way to it.   After an uninspiring intro of the purpose of the get together in a very poorly designed den (looks like something from 1970s movies), the movie looks like what we have seen in a dozen of martial arts movies like Enter the Dragon, Bloodsport, some 50 years back.    The covert night operation done by hero there looks to have been lifted straight away from what Bruce Lee did in Enter the Dragon.   First without any reason, the Gang leader asks the participants to fight it out till only one of them survives.    The idiotic team trailing our Hero, losing their way and identifying three possible locations and raiding them to come back empty handed all look so ridiculous.  

The worst is reserved for the climax.    Going by the present trends of Pushpa2 and Marco, the climax is a prolonged 25-minute massacre of over 100 goons single-handedly by our superhero, Sarkaar, all with knives, swords and axes.   I wonder why our suited booted heroes all of a suddenly become Gladiators in the climax scenes and use such primitive methods of combat.    I could not find any logic that a hero like Nani, who has a big women and young fan following, should fall in the trap of extreme violence to the extent of getting `A” certificate for his movie for the first time.

Coming to acting, I always held and once again reiterate that action genre is not the cup of  Tea of Nani.   His diminutive personality, body language, weak voice, and murmuring type of dialogue delivery do not go well with action movies.  Nani has brought a fresh breath of air when he debuted in Telugu movies with movies like Pilla Zamindar (by far his best movie) followed it up with a noticeable cameo in Rajamouli’s Eega, and established himself as a bankable star with movies like Yavede Subramanyam, Nunnu Kori, Krishna Gadi Veera Prema Katha, Middle Class Abai and Jersey.    He is best suited for the role of the next-door boy, sober romance or comedy movies.   But from Gentleman onwards, the action hero bug and itch to experiment has started and he started dabbling in territories not best suited to him.    The success of movies like Dasara and Saripoda Sanivaram, attributable to his huge and dedicated fan base, has spoiled him and the fine and sensible actor (in movies like Jersey) with great comic timing is buried deep.   Other than Nani, Samuthikarini, as Nani's father, shines in a brief comic role and Srinidhi impressed in her very brief role.  

Story and direction are a big letdown down and BGM was excellent and saved the movie to some extent.    There are a couple of songs which do not get registered.   The stunt director was good at using good camera angles and camera work to cover up the limitation of our lanky hero pulling Prabhas-level action scenes.  

Extremely disappointing coming as a third instalment in Hit series.   The only interesting thing in the climax is the introduction of the hero of the Fourth series, Karti (with a funny-sounding name) ACP Virappa.   We can expect some comic relief from Karti.

This movie is not a movie fit to be released on a pan-India basis.  My recommendation -  avoid disappointment unless you are a die-hard fan of Nani and

compelled to support him.

S. Prabhakar

4.5.2025