Production: Sathyam Cinemas, Aghal Films
Direction: Jayendra
Star-casts: Siddharth, Priya Anand, Nithya Menon, Mouli, Geetha and others
Music: Sharreth
Cinematography: Balasubramaniam
Ad filmmakers have often tried their luck in films and their endeavoring attempts have yielded them favorable results. Say for instance, Rajiv Menon made just couple of movies ‘Minsara Kanavu’ and ‘Kandukondain Kandukondain’ that are still regarded as the best entertainers. So has been the unique attempts of Pushkar-Gayathri of ‘Oram Po’ and ‘Vaa’, which didn’t have a proper plot, but boasted of some creative quotients in advertisement commercial style. Here comes Jayendra, who has been a part of several films made by Mani Ratnam. He makes his debut directorial with ‘Nootrenbadu’, which with its songs and rich visuals had kept our eyeballs fixed over it.
‘Nootrenbadu’ as the title suggests is about a man journeying towards his destination in 6 months. Ajay rechristens himself as Mano on arrival in Kasi as a young boy influences him vividly. In Chennai, the youngster finds gleeful with the ambiance of finding friendship with his house owners (Mouli and Geetha), bunch of boys delivering newspapers amd Vidhya (Nithya Menon), a photo-journalist. He assures that everyone around him are influenced happily by his gestures. But a hidden mystery about his past in San Francisco and his marriage with Renuka (Priya Anand) becomes an ultimate twist in the tale.
Siddharth seems to have learned a lot over 7 years working in Telugu and Hindi film industry. Naturally having been teamed up with best filmmakers has let him on for matured performance.
To mark in simple words – it’s a flawless performance by Sid, who keeps over emoting perfectly to any extents.
The sequence in which he reacts towards the disguised form of Devil needs special mention. Nithya Menon with her simple cherubic looks and bubbly nature easily carries away our attention. Priya Anand is too glamorous and even in scenes that desperately requires her expressions, it’s her skimpy costumes and glam-appeal that is prevalent. Mouli and Geetha as aged couple and house owners are on their best.
What goes wrong with the film is dragging screenplay during second half that leaves audiences dumbfounded about the climax. It would have been better if the duration was kept short. Moreover, the film has chances of getting more popular if the makers had made the film either as a crossover flick or at least dubbed in English.
Songs by Sharreth needs a big round of applause as almost all the tracks are so laudable and gains more intensity with the cinematography of Balasubramaniam. Jayendra establishes his ad-film techniques across many situations. To be specific, we find the song ‘Nee Korinaal’ to be more off an advertisement commercial as the protagonist relentlessly gifting his wife on birthday.
The film may not be welcome in rural areas for it would sound like another piece of old-hat formula where the protagonist has a problem with life and yet deals it in an efficient way.
On the whole, ‘Nootrenbadu’ has nothing special to mark upon the story while narrative structuring by Jayendra and Subha are okay, but gets down terribly with pace in second half. But with the changing times where the youngsters dominate major percentage of theatre-going audiences, it will have an impact on them with a good message at last.
Positives
- Balasubramaniam’s Cinematography
- Best in Class Costumes
- Siddharth
Negatives
- Everything except the above three
Verdict
Jayendra sarma clutches the rule book crushingly but throws innovation out of the window. Rule book without innovation offers mere formula. The innovation in cinematography and graphics must extend towards the story, script and screenplay department. 180 makes a semicircle (technical excellence) while the other half (making) is another 180! 180 – Self-Pity!
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Okay, this is what it is when a philanthropic young man – apparently helping the downtrodden by performing their chores – has pancreatic cancer – a disease with a poor prognosis and asymptomatic development – to claim his life, within 6 months or 180 days, which makes the title of the three hour film that feels like 180 days itself, precisely due to the 101 things that have gone wrong – from the timeworn good deeds of Siddharth – helping the poor – (Mano and later as Ajay) to the predictable interval block to the dragging screenplay – making audience squirm in their seats begging for a comprehensible story – inconspicuous by its absence with the flattest humor and supposedly nice moments -
- that fail to impress you with such consistency in inconsistency that except for Nithya Menon (as Vidya) and Siddharth – no one has performed ever so professionally – including director Jayendra Sarma who does everything according to the rule book of establishing characters, a second act and a third act, though with the hero’s archaic service to the poor to make everyone empathize with the central character, at a later stage, when an important revelation happens about him that should have the audience sobbing but to the contrary has everyone grumbling and mumbling due to the apparent happiness displayed
- in the marriage and honeymoon sequences of Siddharth with Priya Anand (as Renu) in the US where Siddharth was a practicing Doctor of Medicine (MD – a curse for the Medical Profession to always have its abbreviation reversed) before he would come to India to take up menial jobs where Nithya Menon would fall in love, totally unaware of his past life and when she proposes him, he would leave the town where fate would beckon him to his past to see his past wife smile (that which she lost due to his troubled pancreas) before heading towards either India, US, or death -
- where we suppose that you understood the story but that we left something for your imagination to have you witness the path-breaking cinematography (by Balasubramaniam with a Red One Camera), colorful and posh costumes and the awfully drudgery music (Sharreth) in super slow-mo’s that brings us to the time freeze song as the only plus point but its perseverance makes you yawn as the editor has not edited the rushes out but has only edited the producer trio out – MD Kiran Reddy, C Srikanth, Swaroop Reddy!
ithu mathiri oru mokka padathuku money waste pannatheenga ..freinds..siddharth ini tamil padathuku vara chance illey …