All the film reviews I’ve written so far.
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O2 movie review: Nayantara’s best efforts let down by film’s cliches and superficiality
GK Viknesh’s O2 has noble ambition and interesting ideas. On screen, it needed a little more human instinct.
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Vikram review: Intricate up close, incoherent as a whole
A dark world of expensive drugs, covered in the blood of hundreds of good, bad and evil men with purpose, alongside a skilled house help, a hapless mother and a naive girlfriend.
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Seththumaan Movie Review: A Stoic But Striking Recreation Of Perumal Murugan’s Tale Of Food And Politics
Director Thamizh retains the timbre of a short story, yet accentuating it with visual and aural layers that bring it to life without dramatising for effect
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Nenjuku Needhi Movie Review: Arunraja Kamaraj Makes A Damp Version Of Article 15
In the context of Tamil cinema’s history of anti-caste films, Nenjuku Needhi, starring Udhayanidhi Stalin, is rather weak
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Don Movie Review: Sivakarthikeyan Sells The Hell Out Of A Vapid Nostalgia Trip
In the hands of any other actor in Tamil cinema today, Don would have been a painfully mediocre film. In Sivakarthikeyan’s hands, it’s a forgivably mediocre one
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Saani Kaayidham on Amazon Prime Video Movie Review: Keerthy Suresh Skillfully Shoulders An Indulgent Revenge Saga
Arun Matheswaran’s writing is not flimsy, but it is not enough to rise beyond the film’s visual mastery
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Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal Movie Review: A Hotchpotch of Escapist Male Fantasies
As a shower thought, Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal is a fantastic idea. But Vignesh Shivan doesn’t show the skill or inclination to expand on that idea in any interesting way.
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K.G.F: Chapter 2 Movie Review: A Rocky Stack Of Set-ups And Punch Lines
K.G.F: Chapter 2 is loyal to its prequel, its genre, its narrative and its purpose. If you can buy into it and survive till the end, the climax is cathartic
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Beast Movie Review: Nelson Loses And Vijay Gains In This Unremarkable Yet Absurdly Entertaining Action Film
AnbAriv’s action choreography, Manoj Paramahamsa’s cinematography, Anirudh’s background score and Jani’s dance choreography uphold a film that Nelson’s writing doesn’t
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Taanakkaran, on Disney+ Hotstar, Movie Review: An Earnest Vikram Prabhu And An Excellent Supporting Cast Hold Up An Uneven Cop Film
If you can look past the repetitive scenes, melodrama, useless love track and the lecturing climax, Taanakkaran is an interesting film about the police force
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Manmadha Leelai Review: Venkat Prabhu Squanders The Opportunity To Have Made A Truly Adventurous Film
Manmadha Leelai is an unsatisfying quickie, especially if you’re a woman in the audience. Even if the pain isn’t unbearable, the effort to sit through it is most certainly not worth it.
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Selfie Movie Review: A Dense Thriller That Feels Longer Than It Should
Director Mathi Maran makes an interesting debut with Selfie, a film that is worthy of appreciation more for what it tries to do than what it achieves
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Maaran, On Disney Hotstar, Movie Review: Dhanush Tries His Darnedest To Make This Drab Work, And Fails Still
We would be kinder to the cluelessness of the film, if only it didn’t scream “watch me, I’m so clever” at every chance it got.
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Etharkkum Thunindhavan Movie Review: Yet Another Male Saviour Narrative About Violence Against Women
Suriya feels miscast as Kannabiran — too stiff to be goofy, too upright to be shady, too clear-headed to be vulnerable — a role perhaps more suitable for Karthi
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Hey Sinamika Movie Review: A Trite Film With No Romance Or Humour
Every frame, scene, dialogue, event, song, dance feels like an awkward performance put up for an Instagram audience, in an effort to stage ‘authenticity.’
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Valimai Movie Review: Laughable Yet Slick, Choose What Of It You Will
H Vinoth relies too much on Dilip Subbarayan’s stunt choreography, who for his part stages some enjoyable sequences.
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FIR Movie Review: A Clumsy Film That Takes Its ‘Message’ Too Seriously
How do you know that a film is too taken by its own message? There’ll be a Gautham Menon voiceover to explain it to us
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Kadaisi Vivasayi Movie Review: M Manikandan Effortlessly Mounts A Terrific Film About The Everyperson
M Manikandan writes and films it more like a poem of multiple verses than as a screenplay in three acts