Hara Hara Mahadevaki Movie Review

CAST: Gautham Karthik, Nikki Galrani, Rajendran, Karunakaran, Sathish, Balasaravanan, Ravi Maria, RK Suresh, Namo Narayana

DIRECTION: Santhosh P Jayakumar

GENRE: Comedy

DURATION: 2 hours 10 minutes

CRITIC'S RATING: 2.0/5


AVG READERS' RATING: 2.1/5

STORY: The bags belonging to a young man about to break up with his lover, two bumbling criminals planning a bomb blast, a man circulating counterfeit currency, and a couple paying ransom to save their daughter get mixed up leading to so much confusion.

REVIEW: Hara Hara Mahadevaki does stand true to its claim of being an adult comedy film, in the sense that the comedy here involves a few double entendres and sight gags. But take those away, and the film feels no different from the mindless comedies that we have been seeing of late. It even has what appears to be the foremost requisite of a Tamil comedy film these days — Rajendran singing in his sandpapery voice! 

The premise — involving a dozen characters, and a half-a-dozen bags that look the same — does have the potential for a madcap comedy. Hari (Gautham Karthik) and Ramya (Nikki Galrani) are a couple breaking up decides to return the things they had gifted each other; a politician (Ravi Maria) plots a bomb blast to earn sympathy and hires two bumbling criminals (Rajendran and Karunakaran); a fraudster (Bala Saravanan) tries to earn some quick big bucks by circulating fake currency; a child goes missing in a resort and a cop (RK Suresh) tries to catch the kidnapper who has walked away with the ransom money. Everyone ends up in the resort and all hell breaks loose when their bags, which all look the same, get mixed up. 

The best stretch in Hara Hara Mahadevaki, which is partly amusing and often frustrating (because it fails to exploit the situations to generate maximum laughs), is towards the end when confusion reigns supreme. It is in these scenes that the film shows us a glimpse of what it could have been — a riotous comedy — in the right hands. 

Unfortunately, for the most part, director Santhosh is content to peddle silly stuff that one might be embarrassed to call as jokes. He seems to have decided that having a narration in the voice of the WhatsApp Swamiji is enough convince his target audience that they are watching a raunchfest. Even still, the film cannot think beyond generating laughs out of the tumescent male member; it even repeats this same idea thrice! The actors gamely try their best, but the weak writing never lets the film get into a rhythm where the jokes flow seamlessly. Thus, for every funny moment, we get three or four flat scenes. 

Also, for an adult comedy, the jokes are quite juvenile — the sort that might make a teen giggle, but make no impact on an adult — and hardly envelope pushing. Added to this, the best (and ribald) jokes are already in the film's trailer, so if you have seen the trailer, you can consider yourself as having seen the film. 

Karuppan Movie Review

CAST: Vijay Sethupathi, Bobby Simhaa, Tanya, Pasupathy, Singampuli, Kaveri, Sharath Lohitashwa, Renuka

DIRECTION: R Panneer Selvam

GENRE: Action

DURATION: 2 hours 18 minutes

CRITIC'S RATING: 2.5/5

AVG READERS' RATING: 2.9/5

KARUPPAN STORY: A man wins the hand of a girl after winning in jallikattu, but her relative, who had hopes of marrying her, tries to cause a permanent rift between the couple.

KARUPPAN REVIEW: With Sethupathi and Rekka, Vijay Sethupathi showed that he can do mass hero films as well, and Karuppan has the actor playing a masala movie hero once again (he even gets a feet-first hero introduction scene and a well-shot bull-taming scene), but this time, in a rural set-up. And with his insouciant charm, he lights up this rural entertainer, which is an old-fashioned masala film this is formulaic but somewhat fun.

The actor plays the titular character, a happy-go-lucky villager who is a do-gooder at heart, even though he ruffles feathers with his ruffian-ish behaviour. Maayi (Pasupathy, solid as ever), a respected figure in the neighbouring village accepts a challenge to marry off his sister Anbu (Tanya, holding her ground against Vijay Sethupathi) to Karuppan, if he tames his bull. Karuppan does, but this doesn't go down well with Kathir (Bobby Simhaa, good), the brother of Maayi's wife, who had been hoping to marry the girl. So, he starts to plot against the couple, hoping to create a rift between them for ever...

Where Karuppan scores is how it caters to its target audience — the family crowd. There are the moments between Karuppan and Anbu that are sure to strike a chord among couples; then we have the brother-sister angle between Anbu and Maayi; there is also mother sentiment — Karuppan's mother (Renuka) is mentally challenged and he dotes on her. In fact, Panneer Selvam uses this to make the Karuppan-Anbu relationship stronger, as Anbu's attitude towards his mother plays a huge role in Karuppan loving his wife more. This ensures that when Kathir starts stirring the pot with his evil plans, we fear for these characters.

But the film hews too close to formula. Every beat in the script feels not just familiar but also predictable. Like when we get introduced to the character of Pandi (Sharath Lohitashwa), we immediately know that Kathir will try to use him to create a rift between Karuppan and Maayi. Also, apart from Karuppan, the other characters are more like placeholders. Even Kathir (who is introduced with a snake in hand to show his true character) is two-dimensional. This is why the film lacks punch despite having all the elements needed for a masala movie.

But the director keeps the momentum going forward and ensures that the scenes aren't boring. Even though Imman's songs are a let-down, the action scenes are shot well to make us ignore the lack of forceful drama on screen.

Spyder Movie Review

CAST: Mahesh Babu, Rakul Preet Singh, SJ Suryah, Bharath, RJ 

Balaji, Shaji, Priyadarshi, Sayaji Shinde, Jayaprakash

DIRECTION: AR Murugadoss

GENRE: Action


DURATION: 2 hours 26 minutes

CRITIC'S RATING: 2.0/5


AVG READERS' RATING: 2.0/5

SPYDER STORY: A surveillance expert who wants to help people comes across a foe who is the very definition of evil. Can he stop the man before he destroys everything?

SPYDER REVIEW: The protagonist of Spyder, Shiva (Mahesh Babu) is content to work in a job for which he is over-qualified. He wants to help people, even if he isn't acknowledged for it. This is why he is working in the surveillance wing of the intelligence bureau, as part of a team that taps calls. But despite being instructed that listening to and recording the calls of public is illegal, he does so, with his own software, and plays saviour to people who need help. And one call that he receives leads him to Sudalai (SJ Suryah), a man who is the exact opposite of him - the very definition of evil, who takes pleasure in the wails of people.

AR Murugadoss takes some time to set up his story (to show us how Shiva works) and also spends a few moments on the mandatory romantic track - here, it is Shalini (Rakul Preet Singh, with an almost perfect lip-sync!), who plays the director's version of cute girl, while she is a actually another addition to the canon of Loosu Ponnu heroines in Tamil cinema (even the director seems uninterested in these scenes) - but once you look away from this diversion, the portions in the first half are quite gripping...

Shiva's methods to track down the killer of a young girl and his friend, and the chilling flashback portion of Sudalai set up things perfectly for an engrossing thriller. And the anticipation builds to an altogether another level once Sudalai enters the scene.

However, Spyder kind of goes downhill after the interval. Scenes start to become far-fetched (an episode involving Shiva using women to save a family held captive by Sudalai) and after a point, totally implausible (Shiva trying to stop a massive boulder from wrecking havoc). And all this happens after a suspenseful scene that shows Shiva trying to save his family using his intelligence!

Santhosh Sivan lends the necessary gloss to the visuals, but Harris Jayaraj's songs are pretty much speed breakers that only add to the length of Spyder, and kill whatever tension the battle between Shiva and Sudalai generates.

The director doesn't even exploit the contrasting acting styles of his hero and villain to the full - the understated, almost Zen-like acting style of Mahesh Babu and the over-the-top, but crowd-pleasing performance of SJ Suryah. The writing lets Spyder down entirely after a point and, unlike Thuppakki (which was also about a man trying to save and a man trying to destroy), what should have been an edge-of-the-seat cat-and-mouse game between good and evil turns into a movie that cannot decide between wanting to be a crackling thriller and an anything-goes masala movie.