Balaji's Thots

After a lackluster start to the summer movie season with Maappillai, things picked up with Ko last weekend. Now its time to see if Vaanam continues the trend as the film hit theaters tomorrow.
Since Tamil and Telugu films share a fondness for the masala genre, remakes from Telugu – Pokkiri, Thillaalangadi, Siruthai are a few [...]

Films with psychopaths and psychotic killers are rare in Tamil cinema since we prefer our bad guys to have solid motives and films with such people as the central characters are even rarer since we really like our heroes to be good and virtuous. Director Gautham Menon, who has previously made Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu, a film [...]

With both Kanaa Kanden and Ayan, cinematographer-turned-director K.V.Anand proved himself to be a filmmaker who brought back respectability to the masala genre by delivering masala movies with originality, style and smarts. He reinforces that opinion with his third film Ko. Like his previous films, Ko also has all the ingredients that go into a masala [...]

After a week’s break since Maappillai kick-started the post-World Cup movie season, Ko hits theaters this Friday. It is one of the more anticipated films of the year and with good reason.
My high expectations about Ko are primarily because cinematographer-turned-director K.V.Anand is in the director’s chair. There are 2 main reasons why I am looking [...]

The Trailer

The Deiva Thirumagan teaser gives rise to rather conflicting emotions. On one hand, I am glad that Vikram, after Raavanan, has once again chosen a role that exploits his acting talent rather than opting for a masala venture. On the other hand, I’m afraid that he might’ve overacted. Characters like this – a man [...]

Political satires usually lay bare the dirty goings-on in our politics through an individual who exploits the system and then fixes it after undergoing a change of heart. In Sattappadi Kutram, the people who cleanse the system are outside it, which makes it a political satire/social vigilante film. While its too simplistic and over-the-top to [...]

Based on the story – girl is raised by her dad to be an assassin; she goes to kill the woman who killed her mother; she kills the wrong woman and goes on the run – and the initial reviews, I expected Hanna to be a fast-paced, action-packed thriller. But the film is more a [...]

Maappillai has a rather gimmicky setup as it has Rajnikanth’s maappillai acting in a remake of the star’s own film Maappillai. The original film had a lot of things going for it with an in-form Rajni, a perfectly-cast Srividya, a very pretty Amala, a hit soundtrack, an entertaining cameo by producer Chiranjeevi and a racy [...]

With India making it all the way to the end of the World Cup, its been a while since we had any big films released. With the tournament now behind us, its time to make up for the recent release drought. The first film to be released is Maappillai. The film, a remake of Rajni’s [...]

Source Code takes the basic premise of Groundhog Day and applies it to a thriller. While the latter never concerned itself with the reason behind Bill Murray being trapped in the same day and simply focused on his transformation as a result of that predicament, Source Code attempts to provide a reason for its protagonist [...]