Film: Raavan (Hindi)
Rating: 2.25/5
Banner: Madras Talkies
Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Vikram, Aishwarya, Priyamani, Govinda, Ravi Kishan, Nikhil Dwivedi, Tejaswini Kolhapure and others
Music: A R Rahman
Dialogues: Vijay Krishna Acharya
Editing: Sreekar Prasad
Cinematography: Santosh Sivan, Manikandan
Story, screenplay, direction: Mani Ratnam
Producers: Mani Ratnam, Sharada Trilok
Release date: 18/06/2010
The most talked about movie has finally hit the screens in three languages. With big names like Mani Ratnam, Vikram, Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya in the list, the expectations are obviously high.
Story
Ragini (Aishwarya) is the wife of SP Dev Pratap (Vikram) and she gets kidnapped by the most dreaded Beera (Abhishek). Dev begins his hunt for Beera to rescue Ragini. For this, he takes the help of Sanjeevani Kumar(Govinda) a modern day Hanuman, playfully hopping from one spot to another as he joins Dev's mission to search for his wife. On the other hand, Ragini gives a tough time to Beera as she wants to escape. But who is the bad person? Is Dev successful in getting Ragini back? All this forms the rest of the story.
Performances
Vikram looks apt as a cop and his dubbing was also done well. However, he had a grim face throughout so not much of contribution from him in terms of body language or dialogues. His strong screen presence made up for any drawbacks.
Abhishek Bachchan tried his best to look villainous but then he has that baby face which makes it hard to convince. Moreover, not enough power and depth was given to his character which is another setback.
Aishwarya looks gorgeous as ever and she did her bit well. Most of her words were expressed through her sparkling eyes so not much to complain from her end.
Priyamani made her presence felt, Govinda was alright, Nikhil Dwivedi was okay, Ravi Kishan was good, Tejaswini Kolhapure was there to fill the screen that’s all. ‘Big’ choreographer Ganesh Acharya managed to shake his tummy to some extent in a song.
Analysis
The film has arrived with a lot of hype and it must be said that it stands nowhere near the hype. The major failure for the film is the poor content. There is no depth in the etching of the characters and the film proceeds in a mild manner. Entertainment quotient is zero and there is hardly a scene where the audience can connect and flow with the characters.
Mani Ratnam has attempted to portray a tinge of Ramayana in a Ballet mode but the poor background score and just one good song was not much of a help. The film survives only due to two things – exceptional cinematography and breathtaking locations.
It recalls MF Hussain’s ‘Gajagamini’ to some extent while projecting some scenes in poetic-ballet manner.
Editing was alright, costumes didn’t have much work and the art department was natural. If we are to take this as a new age Ramayana then questions will arise on the integrity of Lord Rama’s character. In a way, the villain is shown as the bad man with the good heart while the hero is shown as the good man with a crooked heart so conflict of interest happens.
Weak dialogues and lack of comedy is another setback and to connect to the backdrop of the story could also be difficult. Overall, the film’s only life is its technical values but the narrative or writing are very poor. Mass has nothing to gain from it and other genre audience must have patience to watch it. The openings will be good for the film for obvious reasons but then the chances of film making it to the success mark is very bleak.
Bottomline: Not interesting
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