ak blog

                                                             Drishyam 2 Drishyam 2 Story:  Vijay Salgaonkar and his family are still haunted by the fear and trauma of what happened seven years ago. With the police employing new ways and tracks to uncover the case, how long can the truth remain buried? And can Vijay save himself and his family again? Drishyam 2 Review:  The sequel to  Drishyam , which is adapted from a Malayalam thriller of the same name, begins where the 2015 film had left off—Vijay Salgaonkar (Ajay Devgn) emerging from a police station carrying a shovel. Seven years ago, the almost-perfect crime had a witness, and that's what gives the police impetus and ammo to revisit the Sameer Deshmukh missing-case investigation so many years later. Vijay is now a theatre owner who dreams of making a film based on ...

                                                                 Dasara Dasara Story:  Dharani (Nani), Suri (Deekshith Shetty) and Vennela (Keerthy Suresh) are friends since childhood. Their relatively calm lives are upended for reasons far beyond their control and things will never be the same. Dasara Review:  Debutant Srikanth Odela’s  Dasara  is a mixed bag and there’s no two ways about it. On one hand, the film is visually gripping, the characters seem like they’ve more to offer and the atmosphere feels like everything is about to come undone at any second. On the other hand, Srikanth sets up themes he never fully explores, or worse, wraps them up with hasty conclusions. Due to that, the sucker punches hit you hard and the rest…they just don’t. The setting is Veerlapally. Drinking at the Silk Bar (an ...

                                                      Pushpa: The Rise Story : Pushpa Raj is a coolie who rises in the world of red sandalwood smuggling. Along the way, he doesn’t shy from making an enemy or two. Review : With Pushpa: The Rise, Sukumar ventures into unchartered territory by making a rustic masala film filled with punch dialogues, characters that speak in a Chittoor dialect and a story that’s rooted deep in the region it’s set in. And seeing as how expectations were sky-high after Rangasthalam, what he delivers turns out to be a mixed bag that's over-long, falters at times and delivers what it promises at others. Pushpa Raj (Allu Arjun) is one of the many coolies in Seshachalam who chop down red sandalwood illegally and sell it by the kilo to powers-that-be. In a syndicate that consists of numerous players, Pushpa slowly learns to fin...

                                                                 Ram Setu Synopsis:  Is Ram Setu a myth or reality? An archaeologist (Akshay Kumar) must decode the origins of the mythical India-Sri Lanka underwater bridge, believed to be built by Lord Rama. Review:  Ram Setu comes across like a toothpaste ad where random actors dressed in white aprons assure you that their toothpaste is dentist recommended. The ‘doctor ki suno’ strategy is to convince people about the product’s scientific benefits and claims. Ram Setu does pretty much the same. It puts together characters parading as scientists, environmentalists, experts in archaeology with only one intention —they must acknowledge, approve and propagate the legacy of Shree Ram and Ram Setu (mythical bridge between India and Sri Lanka) as part of history and not m...

                                         prey for the Devil Story:  “Prey for the Devil” is about a nun who receives training as an exorcist under the Roman Catholic Church and then is sent to another school in Boston as a nurse and patient care. There she gets an opportunity to exorcise a possessed - a domain out of bounds for women. Review:  “Prey for the Devil” is another example of how difficult it is for exorcism-based movies to escape the shadow of William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist.” The syntax for telling horror stories that “The Exorcist” established 50 years ago is still in vogue. This horror-thriller adopts the same style sheet and follows a formula that so many other movies have done before and has nothing unique to offer. The movie's plot unfolds slowly, and its jump scares aren't really effective. Although the acting is generally passable, the plot is nonetheles...

                                                               drishyam Story: A happy family living in a hilly area is confronted with a sudden twist of fate and their decision to take it on results in a struggle that is both painful and engaging. Mohanlal owes this film to Jeethu Joseph, completely. His portly frame, his drooping shoulders, his flitting glances find a glowing reincarnation in a character named George Kutty. He plays a father and a husband like a man. He struggles and suffers with his rugged endurance. This is a film that switches genres every second. It opens up as a sweet-coated family drama, gives a fleeting sense of a social chronicle before evolving, almost magically into a game of truth and lies. Joseph picks the most unlikely setting and people to be hurled into this game. Drishyam  is a deeply layer...

                 Ponniyin Selvan: Part 1      Ponniyin Selvan 1 Synopsis:   The Chola kingdom is under threat from forces both internal and external, and with crown prince Aaditha Karikalan, his younger brother Arunmozhi Varman and the emperor, Sundara Cholar separated by situations, it is up to a messenger to ensure the safety of the kingdom. Can he succeed in his mission, especially with Karikalan's former girlfriend, Nandhini, plotting to bring down the entire Chola empire? Ponniyin Selvan 1 Review:   Kalki's Ponniyin Selvan is a sprawling epic that has so far remained elusive to film for many a Tamil filmmaker, and Mani Ratnam finally brings the dream alive with this spectacular adaptation that superbly captures the intrigue, thrills and page-turning quality of the books. In this first of a two-part franchise, the director and his writers — Jeyamohan and Ilango Kumaravel — rise up to the challenge. The manner in ...

                                                                  Kantara Rishab Shetty’s  Kantara , a recent Kannada film, asks an old question that never got old: Who owns the land? Three possible answers: the king, the landlord, or the people. Or no one – land is eternal, and so is its owner, the Almighty (or nature itself). This tripartite struggle marks the screenplay, too, which cuts from 1847 to 1970 to 1990. The whole saga originated from an elemental concern: a restless ruler craving contentment. In 1847, a powerful king searches for solace far and wide. He eventually finds it in a small statute in a forest. The king can own it on one condition, says a man possessed by the deity, he’d have to grant a large portion of the land to the villagers. 1970: the villagers continue to own the land, but the king’s descend...

                Insidious chapter :2   An unapologetically derivative approach proved no obstacle at the box office for 2011’s  Insidious , so  Chapter 2  should equally appeal to undiscriminating audiences, although the series would not appear to have franchise potential comparable to director-producer  James Wan ’s  Saw  films. Genre-wise,  Chapter 2  has the iconic Friday the 13th weekend all to itself among debuts, which might boost returns, but also might send expectations unrealistically high. In the L.A. area, the theatrical run should get a boost from Universal Studios’ incorporation of an  Insidious  “maze” in its annual Halloween Horror Nights attraction opening Sept. 20. Chapter 2  picks up immediately after the concluding events of   Insidious , just as Josh ( Patrick Wilson ) and Renai ( Rose Byrne ) Lambert discover the death of family friend and gifted psychic Elise ( ...

                                                                      Insidious In “Insidious,” their latest attempt to go straight, the  “Saw ”  team of James Wan (director) and Leigh Whannell (writer) avoid almost completely the gore and mechanized instruments of torture on which they built their careers. The results are mixed. For about half its length  “Insidious,”  a haunted-house picture starring Rose Byrne and Patrick Wilson as embattled parents facing shadowy presences in their new home, is a suggestive bump-in-the-night thriller with a few honest scares. It relies too heavily on sound effects and Joseph Bishara’s almost comically   foreboding music  to make up for pedestrian camerawork, but it still shows Mr. Wan aspiring to the kind of B-movie auteurship represented by Joseph...

                                                                    RRR RRR Story:  Ramaraju and Bheem become close friends when they cross paths in Delhi. What happens when they come to know each other’s true intentions? RRR Review :  The last time director SS Rajamouli managed to wow the audience was in 2017 with the film  Baahubali: The Conclusion . It took him five long years for him to conceptualise his next film  RRR  (also dubbed in Hindi), shoot and bring it to the silver screen. Pulling off a multi-starrer with Jr NTR and Ram Charan in the lead roles might seem an accomplishment in itself. But Rajamouli manages to deliver even when it comes to the story. RRR  runs on a relatively simple premise. There’s ‘fire’ – an angry, young police officer Ramaraju (Ram Charan) who is both reve...