Twenty:20

Firstly I must say it's a feat in itself to pull off a movie with the stellar star cast as that of this movie. Mammootty, Mohanlal, Dileep, Suresh Gopi and all others. The director and the producer have truly done a remarkable job in getting all these people together.

Now about the movie, which is a murder mystery of sorts, has enough twists and turns to keep you riveted. Arun, grandson of a famous retired judge is Implicated in murder of a student. Ramesh (Mammootty) is a famous advocate who comes to the rescue. Arun is declared innocent and released. But soon Arun is murdered and police arrests Devan (Mohanlal) for the murder. His mother and sister request Ramesh to take the case, pleading innocence.

Ramesh believes Devan to be innocent and agrees. Devan is released. But soon Ramesh realizes that something is amiss and starts investigating. Thus unravels a complicated story of revenge, deciet and murder.

While performances, given the star cast, are stellar, it is the story which lacks crispness. The initial builtup of the judge Vishwanathan is quite useless, similarly the revenge motive of the SP (Suresh Gopi) stressed at various points in the movie does not play any part in the plot.

Another weakness is the timing of the twists. Unlike an Agatha Christie novel, where the plot changes just when you guess the murderer, here the twists come a second too soon or too late taking the edge out of the story. Also the movie could have done with massive editing.

Overall an interesting plot and good performances.

Can watch.

7th Aum Arivu (7th Sense)

I am more or less a logical person. So, whatever I do has to more or less follow logical reasoning, even my creative side has to be coherent and follow a reasoning which is logical, even if it is slapstick and kitsch.

So after a long time I went to watch a Tamil flick in theater. 7th Aum Arivu (7th Sense) stars Surya (Bodhi Dharman, Arvind) and Shruti Haasan (Subha). The movie starts in 6th century India, with a clan of true Tamilians who are great warriors, can control the elements of nature and possess great knowledge of medicines that can cure any disease. There leader is Bodhi Dharman who is instructed by his Guru to go to China and disseminate this knowledge. Bodhi Dharman is also an expert in the art of hypnotism and can control minds. Thus, starts the journey of Bodhi Dharman. He reaches this plague infected village in China and cures the villagers with his medicine and also saves them from barbarians. The villagers take him as their leader and learn the arts from him. This is said to be the founding of the Shaolin temple. Years later, after his death, Bodhi Dharman is buried there.

From here the movie moves to the present day and the Chinese government has deployed a mercenary (who along with being an expert in martial arts can also hypnotize people) to kill a girl in India who is doing some research and to start Operation red. From there the movie moves to a couple of months earlier in India where Arvind is a circus artist and gets smitten by Subha who comes to borrow a monkey from the circus for her research in genetic engineering. We realize that this is the same girl that the mercenary has to kill. From there on Arvind and Subha become friends and Arvind falls in love with her. He doesn’t know that a deep secret about Subha and research which is later revealed in movie.

The movie is a sci-fi thriller bringing back to life an ancient super hero combining modern concepts like genetic engineering. The first half of the movie is absolutely fantastic. The director and the writer build up the characters of Arvind, Subha and the mercenary superbly. The quality of production and the effects are very powerful and a delight to watch. Surya first as the great warrior and then the circus artist is commendable. Shruti is also very believable as a young scientist.

After the first half movie deteriorates as quickly as it builds up in the first half. From being a logical super hero fantasy it goes onto become a bizarre, illogical and random plot in no time.

While what’s work well is, how the superhero character (Bodhi Dharman) is defined – his powers, how he gets his powers and why are they lost, which incidentally “Ra.One” completely forgets to do. You never know what is the special power of the superhero in that. I also think in 7th Aum Arivu the director who is also the writer has done a good job at combining history, mythology and modern science. Where it fails completely is, in telling how an ordinary guy (Arvind) learns of his heritage and regains his powers. Another count where is fails is the action sequence where the mercenary is trying to kill Subha and Arvind.

Music is nothing to write about.

Can Watch.