Ajayante Randam Moshanam aka ARM features Malayalam actor Tovino Thomas in triple roles. Directed by Jithin Laal and written by Sujith Nambiar, the film generated significant interest through its posters and trailer. But has ARM lived up to everyone’s expectations? Let’s find out!
The story begins with Kunji Kelu (Tovino Thomas), an exceptional warrior, whois granted the opportunity to request for a special gift from the king. He asks for a deity crafted from a unique rock that fell from a meteorite and struck their village, Haripuram. The story then shifts to Maniyan (Tovino Thomas), a clever thief who is accused of stealing the deity.
Maniyan's actions have lasting repercussions on his lineage. His grandson Ajayan (Tovino Thomas), is now suspected of every crime that occurs in the village. Ajayan aces the challenge of clearing his name and leading a dignified life while combating caste discrimination.
Ajayante Randam Moshanam aka ARM has a simple plot that chronicles over three generations. The story is elevated by a grand production value, which serves its purpose now and then. The visual effects and production design show great promise and make us intrigued. However, the film falters in execution.
ARM suffers from predictability. From the moment we are introduced to the special deity and the king’s reaction to Kunji Kelu's request, we know that the idol is fake. The plot then follows Maniyan and Ajayan’s quest to retrieve the original idol. While there is enough scope to create several impactful moments, the film doesn’t fully explore them. For example, when Maniyan steals the idol from the temple and stands on the roof, you are supposed to hoot for him and feel goosebumps. However, the intended impact falls short.
What the film gets right is its politics. It addresses the rampant caste discrimination in the village and puts forth important questions. Ajayan, Maniyan, their lineage and people belonging to a certain caste are not allowed inside the temple. The film is replete with solid dialogues that question this practice and seek to end this practice.
Tovino Thomas shines in triple roles and has shouldered the film. All three characters are distinct, and the variations help the audience in resonating with the three characters. Basil Joseph, yet again, proves that he is one of the best performers. Harish Uthaman, Krithi Shetty, Aju Varghese and several others played their parts well.
Composer Dhibu Ninan Thomas’s songs are soothing to the ears. In some instances, they evoke emotions directly rather than relying on the clever use of silence.
ARM intriguingly blends folklore and action. However, the screenplay has some shortcomings that prevent it from fully conveying the intended message.
Horror comedy is a challenging genre, but the makers of ‘Stree 2’ have nailed it once again. This sequel retains all the charm of the first film, from the quirky small-town atmosphere to the eccentric characters and the simplicity of its people, blending these elements seamlessly for a winning formula. Sequels are often tricky, but the clever script flips the original plot—while Stree kidnapped men in the first film, this time a male villain, Sarkata, terrorizes and abducts women. With the characters already established, the story dives straight into action, delivering a fast-paced, tight screenplay that keeps viewers hooked, bolstered by a strong ensemble cast in top form.
The plot of ‘Stree 2’ picks up after the events of the first film, focusing on a new terror in Chanderi—Sarkata, a headless entity targeting and kidnapping women who have embraced modernity. The story takes a personal turn when Bittu's (Aparshakti Khurana) girlfriend, Chitti, falls victim to Sarkata's attacks. A letter received by Rudra (Pankaj Tripathi) contains the missing pages of the Chanderi Puraan, which played a key role in the first film. Using these clues, Bicky (Rajkummar Rao), Bittu, and Jana (Abhishek Banerjee) embark on a mission to track down Sarkata and end his reign of terror, with help from Shraddha Kapoor's character, who remains nameless in this installment as well.
Rajkumar Rao is once again in top form, delivering his signature performance with strong support from Aparshakti Khurana and Abhishek Banerjee. Pankaj Tripathi continues to shine as Rudra, stealing scenes with his witty one-liners and impeccable shuddh Hindi. The screenplay gives each character their moment in the spotlight, allowing them all to stand out. However, Shraddha Kapoor’s character feels underwhelming, as she appears sporadically and, apart from adding some intrigue, doesn’t contribute much. One standout moment is when Sarkata chases Jana, who is riding with Pankaj Tripathi's character; Jana even manages to make the headless entity drink alcohol, offering a brief glimpse of a smiling Sarkata. Another highlight is Rajkumar Rao’s hilarious rendition of Rema’s ‘Calm Down.’ The film is filled with laughs and hits all the right notes for a horror comedy.
However, in the second half, the screenplay starts to feel sloppy, as if the makers were in a rush and running out of ideas. This becomes evident with the sudden special appearances by Akshay Kumar and Varun Dhawan. While Akshay's character does steer the plot in a new direction, it's clear his role was added to draw in more viewers—or perhaps hint at the creation of a shared ‘Stree-Bhediya’ universe. The pacing feels rushed, and one wishes the writers had given more attention to this part of the film. Despite this, ‘Stree 2’ delivers plenty of entertainment, and Amar Kaushik once again excels in direction. The film retains the energy and charm of the original, with a clever script that brings a fresh twist.
“Jackpot!” is a trashy and repetitive action comedy about greed and bloodlust set in a world full of people who are proud to be awful. Directed by Paul Feig (“Spy”), it's set in near-future Los Angeles, which begins to seem like a statement in itself as the movie goes along. There’s a statewide lottery. For some reason, the state government has decreed that citizens are permitted to hunt and kill winners to try and take their prize money. A handful of rules govern the hunt. One is, only those who’ve purchased a ticket and lost the draw can take part. Another rule is: no guns allowed. A third is: the hunt can only go on for 24 hours. If the original winner has survived at the end of that period, they get to keep their winnings.
Other than that, anything goes. Participants can use knives, clubs, broken bottles, bats, chains, rubber hoses, spears, curtain rods, mop handles, and presumably automobiles (though I don’t recall anyone trying to run anyone down deliberately, which seems like a strange omission in retrospect). They can hunt alone or in groups, even very large groups.
Awkwafina plays the target of the latest hunt, Katie Kim, a former actress who just returned home from many years spent visiting her dying mother in another state. Her dad died a while before. She didn’t have a good relationship with either parent. We get a bit of detail about her personal life to explain why she doesn’t know anything about the California state lottery turning into a murderous manhunt (she’s been spending time with her mom; no, really, that’s the reason) and also why she’s worthy of our sympathy (beyond the fact that, like other past lottery winners, she doesn’t deserve to be hunted like an animal; nobody does). Katie comes into her own winning ticket purely by accident and doesn’t realize she has it until her number comes up during an audition (which she doesn’t get) and everybody starts looking at her like a cartoon wolf staring at a lamb and imagining lamb chops.
An entire economy seems to have grown up around the lottery hunt, though the movie only zeros in on one part: the security experts who locate winners and offer them protection from harm in exchange for a cut of their fortune. John Cena plays one such security guard, a lovable bruiser named Noel. He used to work for a very successful lottery security company run by a snotty badass named Louie Lewis (Simu Liu). He saves Katie from death after the audition, when everyone in the building, including other actresses and a gymnasium full of karate students, have turned on her. She studied stage fighting but didn’t learn a lot. Her instincts are good, but she lacks the moves to survive. Without Noel, she’d be dead meat. And without Katie, Noel would be just another square-jawed he-man. (He’s got a backstory, of course, which Katie will gradually pry out of him.)
Written by Rob Yescombe, whose prior work was mainly on video games, “Jackpot!” doesn’t make a lick of real-world sense, and it’s not supposed to. It has a video game-like repetitiousness and gradual escalation, leading to a Big Boss showdown. There’s a lot of obviously improvised comedy that sometimes lands but more often feels like somebody filmed the exercises in a comedy performance workshop. It’s all in service of a movie that’s more half-baked goof than full-blown satire.
And it seems committed to not investigating the deeper implications of the scenario it’s presenting, in which the lottery hunt is the logical outgrowth of a society that seems to have completely given up on modeling decent values and has decided instead to monetize the worst human behavior. When Katie rents a tiny room from a website and realizes when she gets there that it doesn’t look anything like the pictures online, the young woman who rents it, appropriately named Shadi (Ayden Mayeri), chirps “we used fake photos, because who’s gonna stay here if we don’t?” Early in the movie, Katie sees a hateful stage dad loudly and profanely griping about his young daughter, who just failed an audition. “Sorry for all the bad words,” he tells the kid. “I only curse when your mom’s being a f—--g b—h.”
Ace character actress Becky Ann Baker gives us a glimpse of what the movie could’ve become in her brief performance as a lady who seems gentle and kind but is anything but. She captures the professional predator’s self-satisfied inward smirk at fooling somebody who trusts them, a marrow-deep rottenness that is expressed through fleeting glimmers in the eyes, and that is visible only to people who know what to look for.
But with a few exceptions, the movie’s way shallower than its best character moments. We don’t know what the state gets out of letting people hunt lottery winners–as in the “Purge” series, it seems on its face as if the cleanup required the next day would outweigh whatever value the exercise has in collectively permitting a society to let off some steam–but this is frankly not the kind of movie where you are supposed to think anything except, “that was a pretty funny line,” or “that looks like that must’ve hurt” or “cool stunt.”
There are seeds here that could’ve flowered into an audacious action comedy, perhaps in the vein of “Robocop” or “The Running Man” or “Battle Royale.” I kept thinking of that last one throughout “Jackpot!” because, unlike “Jackpot!,” it’s so cynical that it has moved beyond bitterness and into a kind of blase matter-of-factness, and also because it has an actual vision rather than a notion, and the action is imaginatively framed, lit, choreographed, and edited, an area of filmmaking that has never been Feig’s strength or, honestly, one of his main areas of interest (though “Spy” had its kickass moments, such as the kitchen fight).
The two stars have good chemistry – they seem to genuinely enjoy being around each other – but there’s nothing in the script that challenges either of them in the way that James Gunn challenged Cena in two genuinely special superhero projects, “The Suicide Squad” and “Peacemaker,” or that Lulu Wang challenged Awkwafina in “The Farewell.” For the most part, this is a lackadaisical project that is an example of the coarsened sensibilities it’s making fun of. As is often the case with improv-driven movies, the outtakes that play during the end credits are more natural and pleasurable than the movie.
Review:It's astonishing how much has changed in recent years, yet Vikram Bhatt's approach to creating horror films remains trapped in a time warp. Now, he has passed the baton to his daughter, Krishna Bhatt, but the element of novelty and genuine scare is still missing. Secluded mansions, creaking doors, mirrors, and candles have become tired and predictable tropes. It's high time for filmmakers to think outside the box and infuse horror films with fresh ideas. 1920: Horrors of the Heart is clichéd, with a ridiculous plot that fails to engage viewers. The liberties taken and incorporated into the story are more exasperating than amusing. If only the writers had put more effort into creating genuine moments of fear, the film might have passed muster.
The story revolves around Meghna (Avika Gor), who plans to reveal her love affair to her father on her 21st birthday. However, when she arrives home to share the news, she is devastated to discover her father's lifeless body hanging from the ceiling. Overwhelmed by grief, she embarks on a quest for answers and uncovers a diary in her father's drawer. The diary reveals the heartbreaking circumstances that led her father, driven by poverty and her mother's desire for a lavish lifestyle, to take his own life. Fuelled by anger, Meghna decides to reside with her mother, Radhika (Barkha Bisht), and her stepfather, Shantanu (Rahul Dev), using the excuse of having no place to live. Slowly, she paves the way for her father's spirit to enter the house. As the spirit takes hold of the home, eerie occurrences begin, forcing Meghna to confront the chilling truth that lies beneath the surface.
The film finds some redemption in the performances of Avika Gor and Barkha Bisht, who bring a certain level of grace to the screen. While their portrayals are decent, they don't reach extraordinary heights. Danish Pandor, portraying Meghna's boyfriend Arjun, and Rahul Dev as Shantanu deliver plastic-coated performances. Debutante director Krishna Bhatt had an intriguing story penned by Mahesh Bhatt and Suhrita Das at her disposal, but regrettably, she mishandled the plot completely. The final twenty minutes of the film elicit more laughter than fear, leaving the horror quotient severely lacking.
One notable characteristic of films produced by Vikram Bhatt is their exceptional music, but this horror drama fails to impress in that aspect as well. The VFX effects come across as juvenile, raising questions about how a film can possess such subpar visuals in this day and age. 1920: Horrors of the Heart serves as an incubation center for Vikram Bhatt's daughter, but unfortunately, she fails to seize this opportunity. The film falls far short of its intended goal of delivering genuine scares.
ROMULUS may have founded Rome but, as they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day. The Alien franchise too has certainly sweated its way here, nearly 50 years after Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripey first encountered extraterrestrial form in the iconic 1979 film. There have been ups and downs, but those messy, hungry, hunting aliens have not shown any loss of appetite.
It all comes down to our appetite then, for similar mayhem. With Ridley Scott, the OG director of the OG film, in the producer’s chair, Alien: Romulus certainly grabs our attention. Director Alvarez, who is also the co-writer and is a surprise choice for this big-ticket reboot that has names like Scott and James Cameron associated with it, preps the setting nicely. There is a conscious call to move away from the mid-career protagonists of the earlier films to boys and girls in their 20s this time, with the child-like Spaeny leading the pack.
However, Alien: Romulus succumbs eventually to that commonest of crimes: where a bark will do, it bites; where teeth will do, it snarls; where one big monster is enough, it has thousands; and where one scene of a creature crawling its way out of a human conveys the point, it has two.
There is kill, and then there is overkill.
Still, when it begins, Alien: Romulus has promise. Rain (Spaeny) and the android whom she considers her brother, Andy (Jonsson), inhabit a dreary, dusty, dark planet called Jackson where the corporates who run the show are working them to death. Humans are assigned bunk-like quarters, provided assembly-line food and warned against diseases, before being thrown into their assignments to fulfill their required work hours. When anyone meets those hours, the company simply changes the rules.
Rain, who dreams of returning to a planet where she can at least see a sun, realises this even as she is still mourning her parents who died of diseases caught working in mines, and looking after Andy who doesn’t have the social skills needed to survive such a place.
The desolation of Jackson is striking, its dingy market milling with worn, weary crowds reminiscent of Blade Runner.
But, soon enough – with surprisingly no one in the ever-watchful company noticing – Rain and Andy have taken off into space with her group of friends to try and dock onto a decommissioned spaceship they have discovered is floating overhead. The idea is to use the spaceship to travel to a planet where the sun shines – and much more, one presumes. If you have seen any of the previous eight Alien films – including sequels, prequels and mid-quels – you will know what likely awaits humankind on a mysteriously deserted spaceship.
Again, Alvarez takes his sweet time getting there, and it is a welcome suspense. You may wonder how the youths engaged in jobs like farming and mining on their planet are so well-versed in the whereabouts of a spaceship, but who knows? Maybe it is one of the bonuses of living on a distant planet in the distant future.
Both the vessel on which Rain and the others take off and the spaceship where they dock are rundown, rusted, barely lit vehicles, carrying the whiff of Jackson with them. They are also a maze. Somehow, the group has no difficulty with that, and it also keeps the audience off-kilter, wondering what to expect next.
But then the aliens come, and then they keep coming and coming, grabbing faces, slobbering acid, wandering corridors. Spaeny has too slender shoulders to carry the film on her own, though she is not bad, while there is only so much Jonsson can do when expected to act robot-like or dumb (he is no Michael Fassbender to pull off Alice: Prometheus or Covenant). The others are mostly mere fodder, which is fairly obvious from the start.
The most stomach-curdling aspect of the film does not even involve aliens, of any kind, including those born from the combined DNA of humans and them. It is the film’s decision to resurrect an actor from the first Alien. Not only is the actor now deceased, the film uses him in a manner that is, suffice to say, less than elegant.
"ভাইয়ের শত্রু ভাই" একটি বাঙালি অ্যাকশন ড্রামা সিনেমা, যার কাহিনী দুই ভাইয়ের মধ্যে সম্পর্ক এবং দ্বন্দ্বকে কেন্দ্র করে নির্মিত। ছবির মূল চমক হল যে এক ভাই অন্য ভাইয়ের শত্রু হয়ে ওঠে এবং তাদের সম্পর্কের ভেতর এই দ্বন্দ্ব কিভাবে কাহিনীর উন্নয়ন ঘটায়, সেটি ছবির মূল থিম।
অভিনয়:
সিনেমার প্রধান চরিত্রে মান্না এবং শাবনূর অসাধারণ অভিনয় করেছেন। মান্নার শক্তিশালী অভিনয় ও শাবনূরের উজ্জ্বল উপস্থিতি ছবির আকর্ষণীয়তা বাড়িয়ে দিয়েছে। মৌরী, দিপজল, এবং অন্যান্য সহযোগী শিল্পীদের অভিনয়ও প্রশংসনীয়।
পরিচালনা ও স্ক্রিপ্ট:
পরিচালক মনতাজুর রহমান আকবরের পরিচালনায় ছবির গল্প ও দৃশ্যায়ন অত্যন্ত মনোগ্রাহী। ছবির স্ক্রিপ্টে নাটকীয়তা এবং উত্তেজনার মিশ্রণ রয়েছে যা দর্শকদের মুভিতে মনোযোগী করে রাখে। যদিও কিছু জায়গায় ট্রেডিশনাল বাংলা সিনেমার প্রথাগত স্টাইলের অনুসরণ করা হয়েছে, তবুও মুভির উপস্থাপনা মজাদার।
সঙ্গীত:
মুভির সঙ্গীত অনেকটাই জনপ্রিয় ছিল, এবং গানগুলো সিনেমার কাহিনীর সঙ্গে ভালোভাবে মিশে গেছে। সঙ্গীতের মাধ্যমে ছবির আবেগময় মুহূর্তগুলো আরও উজ্জ্বল হয়েছে।
সমালোচনা:
সিনেমার কিছু অংশে প্রচলিত বাংলা সিনেমার ক্লিশে উপাদান থাকলেও, এর নাটকীয়তা এবং অভিনয়ের শক্তিশালী দিকগুলি অনেক দর্শককে আকর্ষণ করেছে। কিছু দর্শক ছবির কাহিনীর সাদৃশ্য বা চরিত্রের গভীরতার অভাব অনুভব করতে পারেন, কিন্তু এক্সপেরিমেন্টাল বা আধুনিক সিনেমার বাইরে গিয়ে একটি ক্লাসিক বাংলা সিনেমা হিসেবে এটি দর্শনীয়।
সারসংক্ষেপ:
"ভাইয়ের শত্রু ভাই" একটি বাংলা সিনেমার ক্লাসিক উদাহরণ, যা বাংলা সিনেমার প্রতি ভালোবাসা রাখেন এমন দর্শকদের জন্য একটি ভাল অভিজ্ঞতা দিতে পারে। সিনেমার শক্তিশালী অভিনয়, উত্তেজনাপূর্ণ কাহিনী, এবং সুন্দর সঙ্গীত একত্রে একটি মনোমুগ্ধকর বিনোদনের অভিজ্ঞতা প্রদান করে।
Director: Vi Anand Writer: Vi Anand Stars: Sundeep Kishan Varsha Bollamma Kavya Thapar
Ooru Peru Bhairavakona
Review: What happens when the veil between the natural and supernatural thins to a whisper? Ooru Peru Bhairavakona, directed by the imaginative VI Anand and starring Sundeep Kishan, Varsha Bollamma, and Kavya Thapar, delves into this enigmatic question. This supernatural fantasy thriller, woven around the esoteric Garuda Purana, promises a journey filled with mystique, peril, and unforeseen turns.
VI Anand's vision crafts a visual banquet, albeit marred by narrative inconsistencies. Yet, the film stands as a testament to the director's unfettered creativity, painting Bhairavakona with broad, immersive strokes of fantasy and fear.
The ensemble cast, led by Sundeep Kishan's intense portrayal of Basawa, brings depth and dynamism to the screenplay. Kishan, continuing his streak of eclectic roles, encapsulates Basawa's complexity with poise. Varsha Bollamma as Bhoomi and Kavya Thapar as Geetha complement this with performances that resonate, though Thapar's character leaves us yearning for a richer backstory. The comedic interludes, courtesy of Harsha Chemudu and Vennela Kishore, inject much-needed comic relief, crafting moments of laughter amidst the looming dread. Ravi Shankar as Rajappa delivers a notable performance with shades of grey.
Technically, the film is a marvel. Shekar Chandra's haunting score amplifies the eerie ambience, while Raj Thota's cinematography aptly captures the dual beauty and menace of Bhairavakona. The synergy of music, visuals, and editing fuse to fabricate a world that is as entrancing as it is unnerving. However, an occasionally overpowering score does obscure dialogue, reminding us of the delicate balance between sound and silence.
Ooru Peru Bhairavakona embarks on an ambitious cinematic voyage, charting a course through the mystical with flair and visual splendour. Though its narrative sails through turbulent waters, the film's performances and technical prowess save the day.
In an era where the supernatural genre often treads familiar paths, VI Anand and his crew venture into less chartered territories, offering a spectacle that is partly thought-provoking and thrilling. Watch it for its performances and impressive technical craftsmanship.
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