Monday, May 12, 2008

Aarasangam review

Starring: Vijaykanth, Navneet Kaur, Seril Brindo, Rahul Dev, Biju Menon

Direction: R.Madhesh

Music: Srikanth Deva

Production: L.K. Sudheesh
Captain is back - saving India and its citizens from the vicious terrorists. Arasangam, however, tries to portray this nothing-so-new story by downplaying the usual supplements of a Vijayakanth movie, thereby proving to be watchable. Besides, it employs stylish camera angles and breathtaking sets and locations, setting itself a world apart from the other Vijayakanth movies.
The story, however, falls into the standard ‘Captain rescues India from the terrorist masterminds and master plans’ genre. Vijayakanth is an IPS officer with a specialization in criminology. When India’s top brains are serial-killed and officer Biju Menon, brought in to investigate the matter, is also found dead during his flight, Vijayakanth becomes the unanimous choice to nail the terrorists and foil their future plans.

He discovers about Operation Blue Thunder, formulated by terrorists from developed countries to cripple India’s growth. The operation aims at executing the nerve system of India – scientists, directors of top research institutions, economists, and politicians. Now it is left to the Captain to nab the baddies and save the country.

With a script that provides enough fodder for a typical Vijayakanth movie, Director Madesh has done his best to present

it with credibility. His attempts succeed in the first half and lose steam in the latter. After all, exotic locations and hi-fi visual fundas are not sufficient to sustain interest when the script has nothing new to offer. Nevertheless, Madesh’s source of inspiration (Silence of Lambs, to be precise) is evident in more than a few scenes.Captain ought to shed a little more flab (a lot actually), it prevents him from performing his famous fast-as-a-supersonic stunt sequences. Rakhi Rajesh’s stunt proclaims his wild imagination and sadly defies all the published laws of gravity. The stunts also remain another source of inspiration for people to lose interest. Biju Menon, in his double role, excels with his subtle performance.

Srikanth Deva’s ‘Cindrella’ and ‘Koo Kuruvi’ numbers are catchy but the background score is simply eardrum cracking. Tarun Kumar and Dinesh’s dance movements are also worth noticing. Venkatesh’s camera endows the movie with a stylish look, especially in the scenes when the movie travels to Canada.

Seval Movie Launch