Raavan Film Review

What Works

• Santhosh Sivan is at his brilliant best. The movie is so aesthetically shot that every frame looks poetic.

• Ash looks stunning (except for one or two shots where she looks her age)!! She starts of screeching though she gradually does her part well especially in certain frames where she brings in a vulnerability to her character. Special mention for the physical effort put in for the movie.

• Ravi Kishan is a complete blast. He is the only one who looks to be having fun in the entire movie. Even in a song sequence where he comes for a few shots, he comes of completely natural.

• The climax sequence is a very well set action piece.

What doesn’t work

• The characterization and the story is way too simplistic. We get the point that Raavan is the hero here and Ram is the villain but its right on your face. Beera is the hunted but he plays the god is completely humane while Dev the hunter is cunning and murderous. There are no ambiguities, no grey shades black is white and white is black.

• The first half is a huge bore. We have several pointless shots and slow mo montages, which neither seem to end nor does it take the movie forward. Tries too hard to be artistic but never transcends to convey anything significant.

• The movies main crux is the change of heart of Ragini. The way she perceives Beera dramatically changes within few shots where nothing really happens between the two characters other than a couple of rounds of hide and seek. IMO it was ridiculous.

• We do get that its an adaptation. But why to make it so obvious? Govindha jumping across the trees was a joke. Sanjeevani doesn’t the name says it all. Poor old Priyamani gets her nose tweaked just to establish that she is Soorpanagai.Top it all was the polygraph test. Huh !! Wasn’t subtleness Mani’s biggest strength ?

• There is absolutely no chemistry established between any of the three main characters, which makes us completely non-interested in any of the three.

On the fence:

• Abhishek does his part well except for a few flashes of brilliance he comes off as trying too hard.

• It was refreshing to see Govindha in a different role but unfortunately doesn’t get much scope.

• In Vikram’s first Bollywood outing he comes of confident and has a great screen presence but has nothing significant to do on screen.

• Except for ‘Behne De’ and a few BGMs here and there you will never realize it was ARR at the helm.

Verdict:

A huge disappointment. Undoubtedly this one is MainRatnam’s weakest, blandest, simplest movie till date. Give me his unpretentious roller coaster non-brainer of a movie ‘Thiruda Thiruda’ any day over this.