Kuruthi Movie Review

Release date :August 11

Amazon Prime video 

Review : 

Kuruthi means Ritual slaughter (Bali). As Man believes Earth and Humans are created by God. To please god many devotees offer their prayers in different manners. Some pour milk over the idol. Some do fasting for a month and some slaughter animals in the name of God. This act is followed in many cultures and religions. Any practice which doesn’t cross the limits is fine, But problem arises when people plan a Man Slaughter in the name of religion which happens to be the main idea of this film.

The film starts off showing the lives of Ibrahim (Roshan) and his family living in the Hill forest ranges of Kerala who are trying to recover from traumatic monsoon landslide in which they have lost their loved ones. Suma (Srindaa) and her brother Preman (Manikandan) are his neighbors. For a 30 minutes or so, they are just sobbing and grieving. Subconsciously we tend to relate with their live and feel sympathetic towards them. Its after that the real conflict arises and situations turn upside down. A Police Officer Satyan (Murali Gopy) comes to their house along with Vishnu (Sagar), a criminal proved guilty for Murder. He explains that their team was attacked by a mob and due to the weather and transport conditions they have no where else to go, so he says he would be staying there for night. This is where the drama starts injecting inside our nerves and slowly ideological differences of the characters decide to clash. Adding Fire to the Fuel, Laiq (Prithviraj) along with Ibrahim’s friend comes to their house for a visit. Sooner they find out that the inspector and criminal are hiding in that house. It is then revealed that they were part of that mon who attacked them. In an unfortunate turn of events, the inspector loses his life in the hands of Laiq. He asks to save Vishnu and hand him over to court as his death wish. Is his wish fulfilled? Rest happens to be the driving factor ahead for this film.

We can not watch or judge this film from a straight eye. There are many layers that should be explored in this film. The ideologies developed by the characters over the period of time based on their experiences decide their actions. The origin and arc of the characters tranform perfectly.  It not only seeks revenge but also influences others to join the hate. The term “HATE” is another important factor in this film. No matter what age we live humans will certainly hate each other differentiating in the name of religion, caste and creed. They will focus on differences and make borders between people. This Hate cannot be ended, it can only be transferred, which precisely is the ending of the film. While the makers chose the communal clashes as the cause of hate in this film, they decided not to bore the audience with unnecessary messages or solutions. This film truly focuses on the dire effects of such disturbances on the common people.

 The actors truly submerged into the crisis their characters handle. At some point of time everyone plays a grey shade but the shade of the main Antagonist played by Prithviraj is truly black. One best thing about this film is the idea which is truly original in its writing and is a slow-burn. The whole film is shot in the tough places and the cinematography, Art and background score deserve an applause as they suit perfectly to the film and are handled very well. It is released in Prime and Can certainly give it a try as I felt this film is suitable more for OTT audience.

Positives : Actors performances, Cinematography, Screenplay

Negatives : Few boring scenes in first half.

Rating : 7/10

Review By : Sravan 

Srikaram Movie Review

Cast : Sharwanand​​, PriyankaArulMohan​​, Rao Ramesh, Amani, Sr Naresh, Sai Kumar, Murali Sharma, Satya, Sapthagari etc.

Director : Kishor.B

Producer : Ram Achanta, Gopi Achanta

Music Director : Mickey J Meyer

Cinematography : J.Yuvraj

Editor : Marthand K Venkatesh

Dialogues : Sai Madhav Burra

Ever heard of the term Urbanisation. The process of Rural population migrating into Large cities results in Urbanization. While this helps in Wealth and Capital creation to the corporates, Many poor people lose the hope of living and continue breathing in dismay. This film Sreekaram discusses such issues and suggests solutions in its own manner. Like Reverse Engineering this film does the opposite of Urbanization, more like Ruralization.   The film opens up with with Karthik (Sharwanand) a young, energetic and successful Techie going back to his hometown for Sankranthi festival and the village intro song begins just like any other Sharwa film. The premise and characters are established further along the female lead character played by Priyanka Mohan. Her character behaves like any other typical commercial film actress who is shown falling for male lead throughout the film with no prior character development or purpose. But after sometime the story reaches to a certain point where the soul of the film is found and thus the audience travel through the film with lot of emotions. From making farming accessible to making everyone clap during Bhalegundhi Bala song the  second half of the film offers everything. Really appreciate the intelligence of the director utilizing the Covid pandemic situation naturally in the script. After some ego clashes between farmers, and convincing the so called antagonist Sai Kumar in the end, the film closes off with an inspiring speech. Its a short and sweet film. Technically too this film is praiseworthy. The makers took a farm and grew those crops in real. Music, cinematography, costume design and art design are adequate. The supporting actors also did a commendable job. This film is certainly worth your time.

Positives : Sharwanand, supporting actors, Folk song by Penchal Das, Emotional moments in second half

Negatives : heroine characterisation, Lags in first half, similar premise to other farming films

Rating : 7/10 

Aakasham Nee Haddhu Ra/Soorarai Pottru Review From Damaged Devdas

 Aakasham Nee Haddhu Ra

starring : Suriya, Kalpana Balamurali, Mohan Babu, Paresh Rawal

Director : Sudha Kongara Prasad

Producers : Suriya and Guneet Monga

Music Director : GV Prakash

After so many flop movies, suriya came with this movie for his comeback and it's directed by successful director Sudha K Prasad. Lets see how is it.

Ever heard of the term Oligopoly.... A market structure where only a small number of firms can control the market. 80% of the businesses in the world are oligopolies. But in some industries like Cement, Petroleum and Airlines they form 'Cartels' among themselves, restrict the entry of new firms and dictate the prices. This not only fetches them huge profits but also crushes the dreams of many Entrepreneurs who dream to win. This is one such story of a young man named Chandra Mahesh Kanayanam aka Maha and his struggle to fly high! 

Crossing the 90s nostalgia in our movies this film majorly runs in the period of early 2000s where the new millennium started with new hopes as well as challenges. Technology was just getting started and so does countless opportunities. But for an ex Airforce pilot like Maha things were getting worse. The film itself begins with a crash landing of his flight and gently slips into the flashback. The director sudha kongara dedicated most of the film's runtime in  showing the idea and execution of business plan. Simultaneously the Love and Emotional angles of his life were also covered where necessary. This film has compelling female characters Baby and Amma played by Aparna Balamurali and Kavitha Ranjani respectively. Infact the male supporting actors didn't leave any mark in their performance. Even the veteran actors like Mohan Babu and Paresh Rawal were left under utilized.

However the biggest asset of this film is Suriya and his exceptional abilities in setting this film a class apart. Its going to be great comeback for him. The class differences, politics in governance and business tactics were projected very well. But technically this film fails in VFX and Music. Art design and Cinematography are decent. Its tough to talk about Satyadev's dubbing for Suriya. Since Satya is also popular now and his voice is great, whenever u hear his voice it feels like he himself is acting in that film. This might bring down the impact and seriousness of Suriya's performance which i felt. I don't know how wise it is to dub one actor's voice to another one. But keeping all those factors aside this film feels like a clean hit from Amazon prime because of 3Ss  Story, Screenplay and Suriya

Positives - Suriya, Flasback scenes, Tribute to Air Deccan Owner GR Gopinath

Negatives - VFX, Lags in parts, Decent Music

Bottomline - An inspirational story from real incidents (7.5/10)

Shakuntala Devi REVIEW from DAMAGED DEVDAS

SHAKUNTALA DEVI movie review from DAMAGED DEVDAS

DIRECTOR -Anu Menon

CAST- Vidya Balan, Sanya Malhotra, Amit Sadh, Jisshu Sengupta

Shakuntala Devi - This is the biopic of world renowned mathematical genius, astrologer, author and politician. These are just the names of professions but beyond that this film is more about a woman who has always been independent in her life, a passionate lover who never cared anything about how the society sees her. A daughter who always ignored and hated her mother and she's also a mother who loved and tried to give the best to her daughter. Shakuntala Devi as a person has truly lived a hundred lives. Her journey as a person is surprising, controversial and just too dramatic. Like the dialogue in this film as she says "We Indians are like that only, Drama or Nothing!"         Vidya Balan as an artist is truly apt for this role. She brought grace to this film and respect towards the character. Sanya Malhotra played the role of Anu, the daughter Shakuntala Devi. She was awesome in portraying the entangled relationship with her mother

Both Amit Sadh and Jishu Sengupta played supporting roles very strengthening their leading ladies. There is no craft that was not appreciable in this film. This is not normal since this film travels throughout several timelines it is very important to be cautious in terms of putting appropriate costumes and artwork. Cinematography and music are nice too. As a film, audience are supposed to be loving the character. But the new age films like Arjun Reddy/Kabir singh and biopics like Sanju, Azhar are not ought to be flawless. The characters playing the lead/title characters contain few or for a reason many flaws. So we as audience might not like them, but we will still be able to appreciate their life journey. Shakuntala Devi is a millenial born in the era of Boomers. Advanced, Brilliant and a strong Woman

Positives - Vidya Balan, Technicalities and Stage show scenes

Negatives - Self centered and narcissistic character design which disappoints the audience in parts

Review - 6.5

UMA MAHESHWAR UGRA ROOPASYA from DAMAGED DEVDAS

UMA MAHESHWAR UGRA ROOPASYA MOVIE REVIEW from DAMAGED DEVDAS

Directed by - Maha Venkatesh 

Starring: Satyadev Kancharana, Hari Chandana 

Producer : Vijaya Praveena Paruchuri, Shobu Yarlagadda, Prasad Devineni

Music : Bijibal

Maheswar Rao UgraRoopasya - There are many emotions that we experience in our life everyday, But when it comes to movies only one emotion like Love plays the dominant part. There is no balance of emotions in the characters we often see in our films. But kudos to the director Venkatesh Maha who made C/O Kancharapalem earlier manages to keep this balance. He chooses those kind of scripts where we get see the real people and not some fake actors. It can be innocent as Uma Maheswar Rao, Supportive as Suhas, Dynamic as Jyothi or protective like Babji. So many emotions and qualities already. Their capabilities as actors are noteworthy. Their names stay in our memory as the character names and not their real names. That's something phenomenal. Maha brings out the natural emotions and realistic situations to the script which drives the film forward. Screenplay works out just fine and perfect. A petty ego clash between two people transforms into anger and thereby affects many people through Butterfly Effect and humiliates the protagonist in front of the whole village. From then he vows not to wear footwear until he seeks his Vengeance. This forms the basic premise of the movie. It may sound basic in nature, but the director takes you through a whole lot of emotions and ends the film perfectly. Technically too the crafts were very well managed. Thanks to the Cinematography i felt my presence in Araku, sitting in my living room itself. Music is also pleasant to hear. If you didn't watch the original then you will surely fall in love with this film. Great adaption.

Strengths - Naturality, Locations, Realism, Actors, Screenplay

Weakness - Few boring scenes, Lack of chemistry between lead pair, No Compelling conflict or the Antagonist

Review - 8/10

Breathe into the shadows Review from Damaged Devdas

BREATHE INTO THE SHADOWS REVIEW : 

CAST AND CREW : Abhishek bachchan, Amit Sadh, Nithya menon

REVIEW : The sequel to the crime thriller Breathe starring Madhavan released on Amazon Prime this friday. For this second season the story revolves around two new characters Avinash and Abha played by Abhishek Bachchan and Nithya Menon respectively along with several other characters. The only continuing characters in this series are Kabir Sawant played by Amith Sadh and the comic relief character Kamble played by Hrishikesh joshi. Lets see how this series goes. Avinash and Abha are a happy couple living in Delhi with their daughter Sia. Avinash is a well reputed psychiatrist who helps policemen in solving several crimes and Abha is a Chef. Avinash drops her daughter in her friend's birthday party one day and someone kidnaps her from that place. Parents, Police and their friends try to search her for many months but they don't find any luck. After suffering from grave trauma for a long period of time they finally lose their hopes about their daughter and accept that she is not going to return. Just then the sociopath who kidnapped their daughter starts to send in the clues about her existence through messages and to keep her safe asks them to commit heinous crimes in return. How did 2 parents tackle this unusual situation without getting caught to police is briefly the plot of this series.

This Series definitely falls into the Big league series like Sacred Games, Family Man and Inside Edge as it has the Ensemble Cast and required technicalities like the Lavish Production design, Suitable Costumes and Noteworthy Cinematography. Most of the background score in moments is owed to the first part itself. I felt it would have been much more gripping as this is a thriller. The strongest tool to make a successful thriller is the Screenplay. Unlike Breathe which solely runs of survival of a kid and organ donation, this Breathe into shadows manages to explore new territories like Indian Mythology, Bad Childhood, Homosexuality, Multiple Personality disorder, Prostitution and Work life pressures managing the "Saving Kid" emotion neatly. Every murder in this series has a challenging concept. But since there are so many avenues, things do get a little messed up in few moments. Many times the situations become very convenient for the characters. It would have been much more thrilling if new conflicts added up instead of flattening the thrill. This series also reminds you of films like Seven and Aparichithudu too. But nothing seems blatantly coped from anywhere. The screenplay is organic for sure. While the first part ended perfectly the second season teases another season. Indian Web world is finding a decent space these days due to Lockdown and closure of theatres. In such scenario there is a great chance for Breathe 2 to be liked by audience as this is family friendly and new of its kind. Abhishek Bachchan played 2 different shades in this series. In One shade he shines like a silver but in the other shade there's not much to perform. Audience couldn't figure out whether the character arc itself is like that or he is underperforming. Nitya Menon's role deserves a some more depth and class into it.  Amit Sadh did very well in his part. Can surely look out for next season.

                            Positives : Screenplay, Conceptual Crimes, Technicalities, Screenplay and twists.                            Negatives : Few convenient scenes, Deeper impact from characters.           

RATING : 7/10  ( FOR MORE REVIEWS FOLLOW US AT 

  

penguin movie telugu Review from damaged devdas

Penguin movie telugu Review from damaged devdas

Release date : June 19th, 2020

Star Cast : Keerthy Suresh

Director : Eashvar Karthic

Producers : Karthik Subbaraj, Kaarthekeyen Santhanam, Sudhan Sundaram, Jayaram

Music : Santhosh Narayanan

Most of the stories made as films in this world are love stories. Even some good psychopathic thrillers like Spyder and Rakshasudu lose their uniqueness by forcing a lovestory in between the story. But thankfully Penguin did not force any unnecessary love story in the middle, staying honest to the premise. This is the story of a pregnant woman who found her lost son after 6 years tries to protect him from the psychopath who is wanting to kill the child. The combat between them could have been much more interesting, horrific and thrilling but the screenplay lags in many moments and discharges the fun in it. Any thriller can be appreciated only if the screenplay leads to somewhere conclusive and logical.

By surpassing that point if it the film goes anywhere it is only an extension which in this case came out of nowhere. A pure average script. By the time you reach interval you feel there is something off about the kid and by using this situation the film could have travelled in a much darker space and brought goosebumps but it didn't so. There are no songs, so naturally anyone would expect a compelling background score from this thriller. It feels okay in situation, could have been even more better. I don't understand the logic behind playing pleasant music for a death scene.  Technically everyone did well in their craft. The mother factor in this film is highlighted in many parts but the protagonist Keerthy Suresh playing the role is not at all convincing as a mother. Certainly not the character one would choose after Mahanati.

Rating : 4/10