Recent Reviews by Avinash Ramachandran
Avinash Ramachandran Talkies
Avinash Ramchandran has been an entertainment journalist at The New Indian Express for five years, specializing in the review of films, series, shorts, and documentaries. His primary focus is on South Indian cinema, although he also regularly engages with Hindi and English films, as well as occasionally exploring foreign films.
Films reviewed on this Page
Brother
Jayam Ravi, Rao Ramesh are the saving grace in this outdated family drama
Director Rajesh knew what worked and what didn't with his comedies. However, over the past few years, he is just attempting to regain past glory, and this is just a disappointing addition to that list.
In the 1980s and 90s, we had a steady stream of films about an outsider coming to a broken home, and uniting everyone. Visu almost perfected this template. We saw it happen in the 90s and 2000s too where the setting of the home was extended to a college, a workplace, a village, etc… Basically, Indian cinema loves its feel-good family entertainer space where there are clashes of ego, but all’s well that ends well. There was a time when M Rajesh could effectively milk these situations, and effortlessly conjure hilarious scenes with his oddball protagonists. There was a time when he soared past the generic nature of the central plot, and neatly wrapped it all up with his brand of comedy. Unfortunately, hardly any of this happens in his latest film Brother.
Amaran
Sai Pallavi, Sivakarthikeyan stand tall in this tale of timeless love
With wonderful performances by Sivakarthikeyan and Sai Pallavi, Amaran is a poignant yet powerful tale about Major Mukund Varadarajan's love for India, and his wife Indhu.
Gentleman cadet Mukund Varadarajan is marching along with his batchmates during his passing out parade. During this march, an animated Indhu Rebecca Varghese shouts out the name of the love of her life. She also runs around to catch a glimpse of Mukund, who is one among the soldiers passing out. GV Prakash Kumar’s rousing score primes the scene for a romantic high. She is jubilant, happy, ecstatic, and sports a smile that reaches her eyes as Mukund marches with a straight face.
All 6 reviews of Amaran here
Lucky Baskhar
A terrific Dulquer Salmaan powers this brilliant Venky Atluri film
Venky Atluri spins a fascinating tale involving banking, and scams, and Dulquer Salmaan ensures everything sails smoothly despite hitting a few road bumps.
Legendary American poet Maya Angelou once wrote, “When great trees fall in forests, small things recoil into silence…” Dulquer Salmaan’s latest film Lucky Baskhar is about one such small thing that decided to brave its fears, and find a way to survive when the tree of the great banking scam of the 90s fell. Of course, we have seen multiple iterations of this story through series like Scam 1992 and films like The Big Bull. But what Venky Atluri does in Lucky Baskhar is that he isn’t telling the story that everyone is focused on. He conjures up a story of a man who is caught in the crosshairs and decides to do something about it. Now, it is fictional, but it could have been true. And it is this thin line between fiction and reality that truly makes Lucky Baskhar a terrific watch.
All 3 reviews of Lucky Baskhar here
Black
Jiiva, Priya Bhavanishankar shine in a gripping, intriguing melange of genres
Powered by compelling performances and a strong technical team, director KG Balasubramani presents to us a very knotty affair, and does a decent job of unravelling it all.
The best part of Black is how it reels you in right in the first ten minutes. The film starts in 1964. There is a couple eloping with the help of a friend (Vivek Prasanna). It is raining like crazy. Their journey is briefly interrupted by a vehicle in the ditch. This vehicle carries a marble statue of a guardian angel. There is thunder and lightning. Soon enough, this friend, who has sinister intentions, hears two gunshots. He rushes in to ask the couple what happened? Cut to black. Literally. The title credits pop up, and we are in 2024.