All the film reviews I’ve written so far.
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Eeswaran movie review: Silambarasan is earnest in an otherwise middling family drama
Director Suseenthiran doesn’t know where to take the film once he’s established the characters.
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Bhoomi movie review: Jayam Ravi’s film is a potpourri of ill-researched ideas punctuated with loud screams
Bhoomi doesn’t give you a moment to breathe or even feel what just hit you.
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Master movie review: Lokesh Kanagaraj’s direction fades in this moderately entertaining Vijay film
Master is unfortunately the kind of film that concerns itself with too many things but can hardly focus on any of it beyond adorning the hero, Vijay.
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Maara movie review: R Madhavan’s film demands patience of a hopeless romantic to invest in the story
If you aren’t instinctively drawn to the mystical world creates, R Madhavan’s Maara is a drag
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Oru Pakka Kadhai movie review: Balaji Tharaneetharan offers one of the sharpest critiques of modern Tamil society
The biggest success of Oru Pakka Kathai is the adamant normalcy with which it treats everything.
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Andhagaaram movie review: An interesting thriller that is bogged down by tiresome self-actualisation
Soon enough, Andhagaaram gets tiresome. The details unravel painfully slowly, and in excruciating little bursts.
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Mookuthi Amman movie review: Trite and meandering film that wastes its biggest boon in Urvashi
The best thing about Mookuthi Amman is the delicate understanding with which RJ Balaji writes a suffering family. The worst thing about Mookuthi Amman is that everything else is more like trite sketch comedy than a meaningful take on society that’s desperate enough to be voluntarily conned
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Soorarai Pottru movie review: Sudha Kongara, Suriya tell a moving, poetic biopic without deifying the leading man
I rooted for Suriya’s character Maaran when he took flight. But also for director Sudha Kongara as she solidified her position as a rare female filmmaker to narrate a solid mainstream Tamil film.
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As Laxmii releases, revisiting Raghava Lawrence’s Kanchana franchise and how well it represents the marginalised
Raghava Lawrence’s franchise is successful because he normalises vulnerability. While we can debate if the representation is truly positive or a crude caricature, one would find it difficult to argue that he has any malice or is misguided.
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Putham Pudhu Kaalai movie review: A relatable, yet restrictive, collection of stories of hope in the coronavirus era
The five films in Amazon Prime Video India’s maiden Tamil anthology are not all equal, but they are different and thoughtful in interesting ways.
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Varmaa movie review: The insipid ghost of Arjun Reddy
Arjun Reddy made me angry. Varmaa is insipid because it is a half-hearted copy-paste of the original.
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Ka Pae Ranasingam movie review: Aishwarya Rajesh, Vijay Sethupathi’s film is incisive commentary on state apathy
Ka Pae Ranasingam reminds us that resistance is an exhausting endeavour; they will not kill you, they will simply wear you down.
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Time Enna Boss: Tamil web series experiments with different forms, but fails to evoke a chuckle
It appears that the makers of the web series want to stay within their comfort zones, recycling gags and making inside jokes.
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Penguin movie review: Keerthy Suresh shoulders thrilling, though unconvincing, search for a lost child
Penguin draws a clear line — this is a story about a mother. Rhythm is only that. For her, and for the film, that is enough.
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Ponmagal Vandhal movie review: Jyotika doesn’t punch hard but sincerely delivers clarion call to believe women’s stories
In a sense, Ponmagal Vandhal fits perfectly into Jyotika’s pursuit: Every film is a milestone in her single-minded journey of women’s empowerment.
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Sillu Karupatti: An unsatisfying, even if noteworthy, collection of stories about love.
Sillu Karupatti, isn’t a bad anthology. It’s ambitious in form, style and content. But it is so restrained, that it ends up being unsatisfactory.
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Saavat Review: Could have been a brilliant novel, makes for a terrible film
Language: Marathi | Genre: Crime fiction, Supernatural thriller | Streaming on: Netflix After a short prologue, Saurabh Sinha’s Saavat (2019) begins with a woman “penning her thoughts” which she claims “has been her only solace”. She questions her entire existence—am I a good woman? a good mother? a good daughter? who am I? When we…
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Kaithi review: A near-perfect thriller with phenomenal performances, but something still nags me about it
In spite all the brilliance I saw on screen, there is something that still nags me: Lokesh Kanagaraj is building the quintessential man’s world. While he acknowledges the existence of women and has even developed an eye for their experiences, he’s involuntarily erasing their existence by making them the emotional anchor.