M Suganth
Times Of India
Most Divergent Takes
- Kochadaiiyaan (2014)7.0 vs TRM 4.9+2.1
- Jigarthanda (2014)8.0 vs TRM 6.2+1.8
- 24 (2016)8.0 vs TRM 6.3+1.7
- Kallappadam (2015)7.0 vs TRM 5.5+1.5
- Ra (2014)7.0 vs TRM 5.5+1.5
Karuppu
2026 · Times Of India
Karuppu is most compelling when man challenges God, not the other way around.
Kaala
2018 · Times Of India · Jun 2018
This time, Ranjith uses Rajinikanth the Superstar to tell his message — land is the common man's right. The story is simple... Migrants from Tamil Nadu settle in Dharavi and help build it, and run the city. When an evil politician-cum-land mafia don sets his eyes on their land, they revolt.
Tubelight
2017 · Times Of India · Jun 2017
After an uneven first half that takes its own sweet time to set up the high-concept premise, Tubelight finds some sure footing in the latter half, with the romance between Ram and Hema, which somewhat has the feel of a modern-day Sollamale. For how long can Ram hide his condition from the girl, and what kind of challenges does this pose? And the entry of a character from Ram's not-so-distant past adds to the tension.
24
2016 · Times Of India · May 2016
It has been a while since we had a film whose twists and double twists were genuinely surprising and in 24, we are kept slightly off-guard as to what might happen when a character does something. Vikram Kumar doesn't sacrifice the internal logic of the story, so the twists always seem plausible and surprising.
Aarathu Sinam
2016 · Times Of India · Feb 2016
Aarathu Sinam is not a frame-by-frame remake unlike many of the recent Malayalam remakes and some of the changes that the director has made to the plot work and make better sense in the context of the milieu where he sets his story.
Kanithan
2016 · Times Of India · Feb 2016
The tension in the script gets killed and the film never recovers, despite making an effort to recover lost ground.
Sethupathi
2016 · Times Of India · Feb 2016
...to Arunkumar's credit, there is hardly any lull in the film for us to start thinking about such niggles, and we just go along on this entertaining ride.
Miruthan
2016 · Times Of India · Feb 2016
Even though the execution is off, the haunting song that Imman provides for this moment, Mirutha Mirutha, hits us hard, and makes us care for the lead pair.
Bangalore Naatkal
2016 · Times Of India · Feb 2016
Surprisingly, this remake works to a large extent (if you haven't seen the original, even better), because the director, Bommarillu Bhaskar hasn't made any drastic change to the original script and manages to capture the emotional drama of the scenes.
Aranmanai 2
2016 · Times Of India · Jan 2016
Despite toeing so closely to the original's formula and being equally unpretentious, Aranmanai-2 feels underwhelming. The comedy is less funny (Soori takes over from Santhanam here) and the horror scenes not even remotely scary (though, the visual effects continue to be tacky). The cast and the director seem to be coasting along with a 'people will see this movie no matter what' attitude, and it is this blatant acknowledgment of the film being just a cash grab that is most disappointing.
Tharkappu
2016 · Times Of India · Jan 2016
The plot of Tharkappu has scope for a decent action thriller, but the writing is uneven and so, the film isn't able to generate the tension that this tale needs. Also, the characters that RP Ravi comes up with are quite generic.
Uppu Karuvaadu
2015 · Times Of India · Nov 2015
The standout is Doubt Senthil, as a naive assistant director who keeps using the wrong similar-sounding English word — bald for bold, impotent for important, Akila Kurosawa for Akira Kurosawa and so on. In the end, despite the considerable failings, it is these touches that ensure that we leave the theatre with a smile on our face.
144
2015 · Times Of India · Nov 2015
This is Udhayabhanu Maheswaran's big break and as Feelings Ravi, he is a riot. And despite the lack of speaking lines, Munishkanth (aka Ramdas) manages to be funny. But it is Shiva, who keeps the laughs coming with his terrific comebacks and one-liners. His segments are so ridiculous that we notice the humour quotient dipping whenever he is not in the scene.
Thoongaavanam
2015 · Times Of India · Nov 2015
...even though the film doesn't come together as effectively as it should have, there are moments that keep us glued.
Vedalam
2015 · Times Of India · Nov 2015
If you have seen Siva's previous films — Siruthai and Veeram — you will have a fair idea of what to expect in Vedalam. He is beginning to make a career out of films that are extremely loud and incredibly gratuitous, and his filmmaking style mainly involves ramped up camera moves, frenzied cuts, and over-the-top acting with an ear-splittingly loud background score for company.
Uttama Villain
2015 · Times Of India · May 2015
The slapstick portions involving Uttaman should have been crisper and given that by know we are familiar with Kamal's tics, his performance as Uttaman doesn't hold any surprise. But the actor more than makes up for it with Manoranjan; he doesn't strain to make the role more empathetic and it is a remarkably restrained, heart-tugging performance from an actor who, at times, has a tendency to overplay his roles. We come to care so much for this character that by the time the film ends, we realize our eyes have become misty.
Kallappadam
2015 · Times Of India · Mar 2015
As we exit, we realize that maybe there is some truth in what all these three films suggest — to succeed in the film industry, one must not just have talent but lot of ingenuity as well.
Katham Katham
2015 · Times Of India · Mar 2015
There are no thrilling cat-and-mouse games and in their place all we get are predictable situations, a mood-killing love track between Nandha and Madhu, a local girl and a tame climax that is utterly disappointing.
Kaaki Sattai
2015 · Times Of India · Mar 2015
At one point in the film, we are shown that the villain uses a mathematical formula in his operation. It is only in the end, we realize that it is not just the villain but the film's director as well who has succumbed to formula.
Lingaa
2014 · Times Of India · Dec 2014
The entire film is low on whistle-worthy moments. Given that this is a Rajini film, we expect punch (and punch dialogues) in the scenes but strangely, the film lacks energy.
Appuchi Gramam
2014 · Times Of India · Dec 2014
There is hardly any conflict and the chaos, the drama and the thrills that one expects in an end-of-a-community scenario are largely absent. What we get instead are predictable resolutions to familiar conflicts — the rivals realize peace between them can help the village, the lovers find the courage to break free of social constraints and get together, the miser learns that there is more to life than money, and so on.
Ra
2014 · Times Of India · Dec 2014
Visually, Ra is very well done (R Saravanan's camera work is striking) and there are moments that are quite inspired.
Naaigal Jaakirathai
2014 · Times Of India · Nov 2014
In some ways, Naaigal Jaakirathai feels like a new-age Rama Narayanan film — a pet helping the hero to overcome the villains is a trope that the director has used many times — but Shakti Soundar Rajan dials down on the camp and gives us a film that is more of an investigative thriller in which the dog plays a central role.
Jai Hind 2
2014 · Times Of India · Nov 2014
The problem with the film is that it tells a predictable story and in a rather longwinded manner. The antagonists are also sketchily drawn and so, Abhimanyu doesn't face any stiff challenge — everyone except this handful of individuals becomes his supporters. The comedy track involving Brahmanandam and Mayilsamy is plain unfunny (Jai Hind had Goundamani and Senthil in their prime). But the biggest problem is the lack of nativity. Given that the film was made in three languages (Tamil, Telugu and Kannada), the lip-sync often goes awry, and so, we remain distant observers for most of the time.
Poojai
2014 · Times Of India · Oct 2014
Poojai is quite lengthy. Much of the fluff is songs and comedy sequences, which, if removed, could easily have reduced the running time by at least 30 minutes but Hari is not after a thriller but a masala movie. And Poojai is commercial masala done well. There is action (punchy), sentiment (effective but not affecting), humour (silly but funny once in a while), romance (ludicrous and strictly functional), and the director manages to keep things ticking —the action is often relentless, and the nondescript songs and the comedy scenes (Soori and Pandi doing a pale imitation of Goundamani and Senthil) are breathers for us.
Kaththi
2014 · Times Of India · Oct 2014
...unlike Thuppakki, the previous Murugadoss-Vijay effort, Kaththi is overlong, over-the-top, over-familiar, and overtly preachy.
Yaan
2014 · Times Of India · Oct 2014
Unfortunately for us, the second only makes the first seem better despite the actual plot kicking in only here. We have to put up with amateurishly written prison sequences, an unimaginative way to bring the heroine into the plot (you keep wondering why it has to be her and not someone better qualified, like her dad's cop friend Anwar, who has to go to Basilistan to save Chandru), mood-killing songs, and stunts filled with cliches (a bald man gets hammered on his head with a bottle, and he dies by striking his head against a hook, a Bourne-inspired sequence where the hero has to save the heroine from the villain's henchmen through cobbled alleyways, and the most cliched of cliches — a villain who is the worst shot ever).
Sigaram Thodu
2014 · Times Of India · Sep 2014
The film also gives the feeling that it should have been edited tightly, not on the editing table but during the writing. It feels a bit lengthy and too much time is spent on the romantic track (which happens over a pilgrimage), and despite some imaginative picturisation, the songs aren't integrated well into the script. There are also unnecessary attempts at comedy, and it is during these instances that we look back fondly at Arima Nambi, which smartly avoided such audience-pleasing elements.
Amara Kaaviyam
2014 · Times Of India · Sep 2014
...we very much know where the story is heading. And, that is Amara Kaaviyam's biggest trouble — the audience knows what to expect.
Anjaan
2014 · Times Of India · Aug 2014
When a film announces loud and clear all that it wants to do is be in service of its hero, and make him as larger than life as possible, we accept it and all that we expect from it is to entertain us. But when it takes almost three hours to narrate its all-too familiar story with easily predictable twists and underwritten characters in a non-engaging fashion, it becomes a painful watch. And, Anjaan is just that.
Jigarthanda
2014 · Times Of India · Aug 2014
If Pizza was a con movie dressed up as a haunted house horror thriller, Jigarthanda is basically a comedy cloaked as a gangster movie. In the first half, the director provides us the gangster thriller that the trailers promised us — a villain who is both awesome and frightening, his quirky underlings (one of them is a teetotaler and a god-fearing man whose weakness is porn and the scenes where Karthik and Oorani try to woo him by supplying him porn are a blast), brutal murders, and a tense interval block.
Kochadaiiyaan
2014 · Times Of India · May 2014
Kochadiiyaan succeeds not because of technology but because of the writing. The film is motion capture 3D computer-animated but the animation is primeval; both the motion capture and the texture of the visuals are closer to The Polar Express than Avatar or Tintin. The long shots aren't problematic but whenever the camera cuts to a close-up, we are drawn to the inanimate nature of the expressions. The characters feel like caricatures of the real-life actors we have known.