Bhargavi Chandrashekar

A Film I Wish I Could Defend As someone who grew up idolizing Upendra's work, eagerly waiting for every film he directed, "UI" was supposed to be special. It wasn't just another movie for me, it was a promise, a chance to relive the brilliance of a director who could turn metaphors into masterpieces. But this time, I can't defend what I saw. Upendra has always been known for his layered storytelling, blending deep metaphors with entertainment. But "UI" strips away the entertainment and leaves us with a hollow shell. Yes, there are metaphors, but they feel forced, like a puzzle with missing pieces. And the production, Oh! Where do I start? The sound design, the re-recording, the VFX, all of it feels cheap. It's ironic that the film has a song called "Cheap Song," because the entire visual and auditory experience aligns with that title. The characters come and go so fast that you hardly have time to connect with them. Reeshma's character is so forgettable that you almost wonder if she was meant to be there at all. Medini Kelamane, playing Satya and Kalki’s mother, delivers more without a single word than many others do with pages of dialogue. Guru Prasad stands out, his performance is one of the few saving graces. But beyond these moments, there's very little to hold on to. The film is a chaotic mess, and even for someone like me, who has defended Upendra's most divisive works, this feels like a bridge too far. "UI" isn't the Upendra I grew up loving. It's a reminder that even the best can falter and as much as it hurts to say it, this is a film I can't recommend.

Yuva Rajkumar truly deserved a much bigger stage than what Santhosh Ananddram's 'Yuva' offered. The movie felt like a mishmash of too many elements, resulting in a messy and lackluster screenplay. While Yuva Rajkumar showed promise in fight sequences and dance numbers, it wasn't enough to salvage the film. The love story followed predictable patterns, typical of Ananddram's work, and Saptami Gowda's character lacked depth, with her performance falling short of expectations. The dialogue felt contrived with an abundance of cheesy one-liners - of course meant for the Rajvamsha fans. While the protagonist's hot-headed nature is understandable, it shouldn't result in a "Single expression" throughout the film. The movie failed to capture the authenticity of middle-class life, Unnecessary fight scenes and forced Mangalorean slang further detracted from the overall experience. It's disappointing to see such potential go untapped in Yuva Rajkumar's debut. Despite its flaws, Yuva Rajkumar shows potential and could shine with improvements in expressions and natural acting. Ultimately, "Yuva" is a mediocre commercial film, only worth watching for its dance sequences and action scenes.

Rating: 3 ½ Sachin Ravi's debut directional is warm, funny, smart, intelligent, entertaining, convincing and also tad longer. Apart from our Narayana (Rakshit Shetty) It is Achyuth Kumar, Balaji Manohar, Pramod Shetty, who steals the show. Hmm, what? No, I didn't forget to mention Shanvi Srivastava. One cannot forget her performance nor her characterization, something which is more enlivening. However Bhatru's cameo goes unnoticed. Rakshit Shetty's acting seems to be forced at a few parts. Idk whether it was deliberated or not. The film is induced with an atmospheric experience (Thanks to Karma Chawla's cinematography and Sachin's editing is a major plus) as they display very pleasing visuals with the splendid color grading and spaced out background score (by Ajneesh Loknath who always surprises with his remarkable works) with the circumstanced music to keep you hooked into the treasure hunt. The resulting blend of evolving sensibilities with top notch production choices creates an the interpretation that respects the vogue that the film set in while suiting current attitude & trend. It delivers everything that a fan could want in a film. It's a cinematic epic that displays the talent of everyone involved in the project. On the other end the Climax seems to be a bit rushed, which, if it had worked this could have been the quintessential movie that the fans of Rakshit Shetty always dreamed of. Which is the downside of the narrative. Aaand and and Charan Raj's Narayana Narayana song is Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Solo – Soulful, Bejoy’s Brilliance – 3.5/5 Genre – Experimental (Romantic Drama Thriller) Language – Malayalam Run Time – 154mins ⓤ Directed by Bejoy Nambiar Bejoy’s Malayalam debut is finally here. Remember Bejoy ; David, Wazir & his debut Shaitan. I know most of you don’t remember, because those were niche films, it was centered only for few audience. And hence Solo, an ananthology of four stories about four different people, each story revolving around four mythical elements: Water (Shekhar), Wind (Trilok), Fire (Siva) and Earth (Rudra) as well as the facets of Lord Shiva. Solo has spectacular visuals with different tone grades matching to the element of the stories, Sreekar Prasad handles fine editing. It also has refreshing songs (could have been utilized more) and the Paradisiacal BGM. It showcases Technical Brilliance of Bejoy. Dulquer Salmaan is a treat to watch portraying four different characters. At times the movie falls down, not everyone likes the layer narrative. The dialogues could have been better, the supporting character at few portions ; Why? Like Why ! ? Out of four stories you goina like at least two & to me it was world of Shekhar & Trilok. Talking about the women of the solo ; Neha Sharma playing as Akshara and Arthi Venkatesh as Ayesha with just two dialogues impressed me a lot. Bejoy’s honest effort in weaving the stories inspite of small length fails at some points. Since its an anthology some of them find it’s difficult to fit into the shoes. Spoiler Alert World of Shekhar – An Ample romance tale of the stammering (manufacturing defect, in Radhika’s words) Shekhar and the enchanting blind dancer Radhika (Sai Dhanshika). Switching between the flashback and the present the story offers wonderful chemistry between DQ and Dhanshika. Played well around the theme water ; the pool, water dance, etc. Should have been used Soubin Shahir even better. Sai Dhanshika, inspite of having lot of screen space fails to completely utilize it. We all know she can do better than this! DQ as Shekhar is Loving, Thug, Daring & Crazy. World of Trilok – Representing the element wind, its a revenge thriller with some strong romantic background. The story opens with Ayesha (Arthi Venkatesh) enjoying the cool breeze in her cycle get hit by the car. Anson Paul as Justin, Ann Augustine as Anny does some decent job. DQ as Trilok Menon, a veterinary doctor is Calm, Composed, focused but also wounded. It is conceptualized around the human values, and you can never escape from being punished for the sins. World of Siva – The third instalment representing the element fire. Its again the revenge saga but its about the gangster. Dark movie lovers will for sure like this. Siva travels to Mumbai from Kochi in search of the person who killed his father. Siva is just one step away, killing Vishnu (Prakash Belawadi). But something stopped him doing so. Shruthi Hariharan as Rukku, wife of Siva fails to make an impact. The main highlight of this portion is DQ’s performance without any single dialogue, but just one word “Amma” at the time being shot by Vishnu. Aigiri Nandini song is shot well. World of Rudra – The final instalment of the Solo representing the element Earth. DQ as Lt. Rudra Ramachandran is madly in love with Akshara (Neha Sharma). Rudra’s unconditional love towards Akshara is shown brilliantly. Everything seems right and serious, but wait, there’s something else. Alok (Manit Joura) Is all set to tie a knot to Akshara. Rudra’s friends want to know why Akshara ditched him. This will lead to two men indulging in a fistfight to win a girl’s hand. Of course our hero wins the battles, but he will not marry the girl. Why? Well, that’s funny. Should I take it as funny or feel pity for Rudra! I walked out with that question in my mind, Humming Sita Kalyanam.

Half Cooked Biryani The movie opens with the intension of serving the platter full of comedy entertainer for the start 2 hours. And it begins the same way, but towards the end of the first half it's nothing but all pandemonium. Avinash Balekkala's writing is as much Confused as the character of Simon is in the movie. I wish Pannaga Bharana had directed "French Biriyani" first and next the "Happy New year," Al least then I wouldn't have the same problem that I've now with his direction. I'm not saying French Biriyani is completely non-sense, the movie had its fair amount of the laughs. But, it didn't not work out as a complete package. Felt like I'm watching some various clips of comedy scenes from a different movies. There wasn't any proper vision in the story telling. Huff the Climax! Seriously, what was that?

2.5 out of 5 Stars! Aadi Lakshmi Puraana opens with the solid premise, a cop hunting a drug peddler, who is very much determined he would bust the king pin, who put the career first above all etc. But, soon it just goes out in the air like a boom. The story then focuses only on the romance track, which is built on lies & confusions. Even though the drug busting story runs in the parallel, it doesn't get much of the same importance that is given to the romance. There's humor, in fact the whole Movie is filled with humor, which bring us some laugh at the beginning, but as the story moves it seems like some exercise of laughter. Despite being a protégé of Mani Ratnam, Priya's effort in creating a magical moments has failed. Not saying she has to match him or replicate his style, it's just that when you have worked under a person like Mani Ratnam we kinda expect something from her work experience to reflect on the story. Overall, if the director had tried to balance the crime & romance it would have been a good movie. No harm in watching this one time as a pure time pass film.

Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl is neither a biopic, nor a war drama. So, please don't expect a high octane action sequences. It's a story about a woman, who is so determined to be a pilot and doesn't think anything beyond that. It also gives a settle message that women can achieve anything they want to and men should treat a woman for what she is rather than judging her by the gender. It also depicts how the women have to go through all the patriarchy stereotype society or a Male chauvinism. There isn't much of a Kargil background story, except for the last 20mins, which is kind of both satisfying & disappointing at the same time. Now Jhanvi has Gunjan... Every time when Pankaj Tripathi was shown on the screen I was like give me more of him, he was so Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious in the role of Anup Saxena. This man is a true genius in acting, which he does with so much of ease. Vineet Kumar Singh, Angad Bedi & Manav Vij does the justice to their role. And no I didn't not forget to continue about how Jhanvi's performance was in the movie. It's just that I'm still confused with her expressionless acting, totally forgetful. Overall, Gunjan Saxena is a simplistic film presented by Sharan Sharma & team without overdoing or over-decorating with a patriotism yet something was definitely amiss.

There's a beauty in the movie but there's also a chaos throughout the movie. One moment you like the movie the other it's not the same that you had expected it to be. It's confusing just like it's characters of the movie. The film editing was below par although the songs were soothing it didn't work out well. The pre-climax reminded me of a Malayalam movie (AO - Could be a spoiler hence just using the intials) which had the same approach in the story telling. To Sum Up, Bheemasena Nalamaharaja is like a Buffet than the sit-down meals. Would have enjoyed it more if it was the latter.

Rating - 2.5/5 Somewhere in Mumbai, in the rainy night. The famous London Based Novelist Vikram Sethi (Sidharth Malhotra) is running away from the police in his classy Mercedes Benz. While the cops chasing for Vikram there comes Maya (Sonakshi Sinha) wooooh banging into their Police Jeep. Ittefaq, the most anticipated movie in Bollywood which is an adaptation of the movie by the same name which released in the late 60s starring Rajesh Khanna and Nanda. Well that movie was a remake of the classic Hollywood movie Sing post to Murder. But the Ittefaq starring Sid Malhotra and Sonakshi Sinha has a different plot. The whodunit mystery starts here. Vikram, the best selling author isn’t that happy. Because his last release failed to impress the readers. And he’s in Mumbai along with his publisher wife Catherine (Kimberley Louisa McBeath), to launch his next book. Catherine is found dead and Vikram starts running and takes refugee at Maya’s house. But Maya has her own dark secrets ? In the later events Maya manages to reach the police and when the cops arrive at her apartment, Vikram is standing next to Maya’s Husband Shekar Sinha’s dead body. Dev (Akshaye Khanna) is now in charge of the double murder mystery case. And he has just 3 days to crack the case. Now the two suspects Vikram and Maya have their own versions of the stories. According to Maya; Vikram killed his wife and he came to her house and then after certain events he killed Shekar. And In Vikram’s version ; He is running away from the police because of the false alarm of killing his wife. And takes the refuge at Maya’s house. Where he will find unusual things. And Maya plans the event and makes him fall to the police has a victim for killing Shekar. Will Dev ever be able to crack the case in just three days with the two perspectives ? Is it Maya who killed her husband ? Who Killed Catherine ? Or is it Vikram who killed the both ? Abhay Chopra’s directorial debut could have been hit if he had taken care of the screenplay a little interesting. This movie doesn’t have any songs just like the 60s Ittefaq. Michal Luka’s camera isn’t that great but the interiors makes the frame look alluring. The all time sleeping police, who needs chai even at the crime scene, the automated voice in the lift annoying Dev, and at one point the cop says “If you’re right, then there’s nothing wrong” bring some laughter. It’s Sonakshi Sinha who scores the best in acting along with the Akshaye Khanna. Overall Ittefaq tries your patience and it’s not that difficult to guess whodunit.