Comedy as a genre has undergone a sea change in Tamil cinema. A couple of decades ago, the comedian, usually the hero’s best friend, appeared in scenes that were inserted between song and action sequences, thus providing a lot of fodder to Tamil comedy TV channels. That ‘separate comedy’ track is a thing of the past now, since the entry of new-age directors. Nelson, one of them, has been a pioneer in pushing comedy to the forefront in vital sequences, irrespective of the mood of the scene. This was evident — and worked to a large extent — in  Kolamavu Kokila and Doctor.

This trope fails him in Beast, Vijay’s latest film, running in theatres. Vijay is cast as Veera Raghavan, a RAW agent who can dodge a hundred bullets and yet come out unscathed. The first few minutes of the film showcase him on the Indian border, where he does something that he ends up regretting. We can feel the why — or the emotional heft — in this scene.

But that, unfortunately, goes missing in the rest of the film. You also don’t feel the jitters that ought to be present in a tense situation like this. Somewhere in the hullabaloo of a Chennai mall, which is held hostage by a group of terrorists, both emotion and logic, to a large extent, go for a toss.

Can Veera Raghavan save these innocent civilians? Why have the terrorists captured a Chennai mall?

Beast as a subject — a hostage situation in a mall, and a hero ready to save them — is right up Nelson’s alley, going by his past record. The interaction between the characters might have made for some rib-tickling scenes, but unfortunately, it’s only VTV Ganesh’s occasional funny one-liners that we are left with. Vijay’s interaction with Selvaraghavan, playing the mediator between the Government and the terrorists, seems a lot more casual. The romance with Pooja Hegde and its whole set-up could have been totally avoided, and it still wouldn’t have made much of a difference.

By star-worshipping the hero and showcasing many slow-motion sequences and heavy-duty action scenes, Nelson falls into a trap that he carefully avoided in his previous Doctor. Here too, much like Sivakarthikeyan in the previous outing, Vijay is aloof and expression-less. But unlike that film, he prefers to use more brawn than brain… which is among the big problems of Beast.

The writing is a big letdown, especially in the second half after the hostage situation gets under control, and the lack of a strong villain to challenge the lead sticks out sorely. Beast comes across as a very rushed job, when the director and team set out to make a film within a limited time frame, thus running out of ideas. There’s Anirudh’s music, with the ‘Jolly O Gymkhana’ song playing during the closing credits, and some VTV Ganesh gags if you really care, but Beast dishes out very little else.

Beast is currently running in theatres

The senior BJP leader inaugurated a charitable hospital in the Sinhagad area here.

Speaking on the occasion, he related an anecdote from the time when he was a minister in the Shiv Sena-BJP government in Maharashtra.

“A hospital named for late RSS chief K B Hedgewar was being inaugurated in Aurangabad. I was a minister in the state government then. A senior RSS functionary expressed wish that the hospital be inaugurated by Ratan Tata, and asked me to help,” Gadkari said.

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He then contacted Tata and persuaded him to inaugurate the hospital citing Tata Cancer Hospital’s contribution in providing cancer care to the poor in the country, he said.

“Upon reaching the hospital, Tata asked if the hospital is only for people from the Hindu community. I asked him ‘why do you think so’. He immediately replied, ‘because it belongs to the RSS’.

“I told him that the hospital is for all communities, and no such thing (discrimination on the basis of religion) happens in the RSS,” the Union minister said.

Action Thriller ‘Agent Game’ Trailer with Jason Isaacs Mel Gibson

by Alex Billington
March 7, 2022
Source: YouTube

“We’re next…” “Well, get ready.” Saban Films has released an official trailer for an action thriller film titled Agent Game, another one of these direct-to-video-esque action movies they’re churning out dime-a-dozen of these days. A CIA officer finds himself the target of a rendition operation after being scapegoated for the death of an interrogation subject. As the team tasked to bring the officer in begins to question their orders — and each other — Olsen, a senior intelligence officer, and his subordinate raise the stakes. The impressive ensemble cast includes Dermot Mulroney, Adan Canto, Katie Cassidy, Annie Ilonzeh, Rhys Coiro, Barkhad Abdi, with Jason Isaacs and Mel Gibson. I don’t have much to say about these action films – they all look the same, they all seem extra redundant and dull. It’s almost as if the plot doesn’t even matter.

Here’s the official trailer (+ poster) for Grant S. Johnson’s Agent Game, direct from YouTube:

In this riveting spy thriller, no one is safe. Harris (Dermot Mulroney), a CIA interrogator at an Agency black site, finds himself the target of a rendition operation after being scapegoated for an interrogation gone horribly wrong. As the team tasked to bring Harris in begins to question their orders — and each other —Olsen (Mel Gibson), a senior intelligence officer, and his subordinate, Visser (Annie Ilonzeh), raise the stakes. Now, it’s up to Harris and some newfound allies to uncover the truth and turn the tables. Agent Game is directed by producer / filmmaker Grant S. Johnson, of the movies Frat Star and Nighthawks previously. The screenplay is by Mike Langer Tyler W. Konney. It’s produced by Tyler W. Konney. Saban Films will release Johnson’s Agent Game in select US theaters + VOD starting April 8th, 2022 this spring.

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Providing a level playing field to invisible India, Nagraj Manjule’s  Jhund takes us beyond the ‘wall of social divide’ to a ghetto where life is a struggle for survival. Inspired by the story of a real-life football coach Vijay Barse, who uplifted slum children through football and launched the concept of slum soccer, Nagraj has used his lived Dalit experience to make a sensitive statement on the need to bridge the social faultlines, without applying any sugar coating.

It is not as wholesome as his previous success stories,  Fandry and  Sairat, but the social drama deserves to be experienced for its sheer grit and ability to look into the eye of a festering social problem.

In fact, the mere act of staring is the real obstacle in the film. When an upper caste boy stares at the Dalit in the latter’s territory, he considers it as an act of questioning his existence; but when the Dalit stares back at the well-endowed in his space, it is taken as an offence for registering his presence.

Usually in commercial cinema, Dalit characters are whipped to manipulate emotions in favour of the upper caste or casteless saviour in the name of poetic justice. The proximity between the two is often as much as a politician having food with a Dalit during the election season.

The so-called parallel cinema, on the other hand, white-washes Dalits so much that it robs them of the social and psychological warts that have become part of their identity after centuries of otherisation. Here, Manjule keeps it raw and realistic as the camera tracks the anguish in Ankush Mashram’s eyes. But at the same time, it provides a rousing background sound to the Dalit hero, that is often reserved for the upper-class protagonist in the popular Hindi cinema.

At one point, Mashram starts sounding like Mishra. The ambiance of  jhopad patti, the residence of ragpickers, has a lot of plastic strewn around, but there is no designer display of poverty.

Making smart use of symbolism to capture the trenchant urge for dignity and agency among Dalits, Manjule captures the youth dancing in abandon to the DJ music in front of the photo of B. R. Ambedkar, whose image is hard to find even in the background of a frame of a Hindi film. The sequence ends with the biggest icon of Bollywood bowing to the Dalit icon.

At the same time, he places a Dalit shopkeeper who is not too keen to invest in this unreflective display of Dalit power and puts his hand up only when he sees the possibility of a real change. The most effective use of visual metaphor for change comes through in the climax when Ankush passes successfully through a metal detector.

The pace is uneven and it appears Manjule doesn’t believe in using scissors. It takes time to get used to the mood, but gradually it occurs to us that the film’s technical grammar is in sync with the lives it is depicting; a meandering urge to get out of the rabbit hole where crime often becomes a compulsion and drugs an escape from reality.

For instance, the scenes where the slum dwellers discover that they are Indian and that they need papers to prove their identity are tackled as mundanely as it perhaps happens in life. Casting non-actors helps in generating the atmosphere and a sense of intimacy. 

If the story is about a Vijay who is keen to change the world around him, who could be a better choice than Amitabh Bachchan, the original Vijay? Bachchan drops his mannerisms and baritone to play a determined football coach who uses the beautiful game to change the lives of the slum boys. To his credit, he doesn’t look like the odd man out among the cast of non-actors.

However the storytelling could have been tighter and a little more subtle, and Vijay’s character could have been a little more layered. His speech in the courtroom takes away some of the impact of all the unsaid that Manjule had captured till then. So does the surrogate advertisement of an airline. But then these are the dangers when you walk on the wall that separates commerce from art.

Jhund is currently playing in theatres

On Friday, SDPI leader Subair was hacked to death at Elappully. SDPI has accused RSS for the murder. However, it is unclear if the attack on Sreenivasan is in retaliation for this.