Billa - The Don who played it safe .

Yep, that's Billa 2007 for you. A fantastically expected movie that almost matched the hype of Sivaji, Billa 2007 takes you in a cruise ride when you expected a roller coaster of some sorts. Can't blame anybody other than yourself for that, can you? (Or maybe a pure film critic, you can question the director for his lack of improvisation but hey, he is being professional about it as it's his first big break as a commercial film director! I'm staying on the fence for now with respect to this issue. )

I watched the 1st day 1st show of Billa in Satyam Theatres amidst many thala fans and the atmosphere was mildly electric for Satyam's standards. Other than Kamal and Rajini, only Ajit can boast of such a support in this complex. The film is basically a combination of the technical side of Don and narrative side of Billa. There has not been any experimentation from the director. He has adapted to the original Billa completely. His argument must be that any experimentation would have increased the risk factor for a movie that has immense expectations. That's something I won't buy because Vishnuvardhan is highly talented, especially with his way around the plots and dialogs of a movie.


The story of Billa is located in Malaysia and understandably so as it adds to the flavour and quality of the visuals. Anu Vardhan scores a centum with her costume designs. Matches the locales and the characters like a mirror image. The characterization of Billa, his allies, his enemies etc are a replica of what we ve seen in original Billa but in the clothes of Don. Prabu as the cop who helps Billa has once again has asked too much from the viewers because he does not convince you much, just like his role in Chandramukhi. Aditya is Prabhu’s right hand in the movie and he delivers what is expected from a seasoned performer. Vishnu has cleverly placed his shots in such a way that we would not suspect Rahman that much but if this were not a remake, our impact when realizing that Rahman was the mole in Billa’s camp would have surely doubled.

The extents of exaggeration and lack of logic is in the same levels as what we saw in Don and Billa the original. So any comments about the naïve policemen or the superman-esque Billa should be ignored for hypocrisy as Vishnu’s team have not attempted an exaggeration that we have not seen before in Tamil Cinema. Where Vishnu scored during such sequences where Billa (both the original and the fake one, Velu) shows his cinematic cleverness and bravery to get rid of a tough spot is in the gracefulness of his execution.

As always, I’m not going to bother revealing much story wise because I expect people to go watch the movie after reading my review and moreover, this is a safe remake which does not have any experimentation, so you pretty much know the story by now.I will settle my score with Vishnu later as the real heroes of this movie needs some appreciation now. Ultimate Star Ajith Kumar and Nirav Shah.


Let me start first with the worthy winner of number # 1 hero of this movie. Nope, not Thala, it’s NIRAV SHAH. Mind-blowing Cinematography that has taken this movie to Hollywood levels. The locations he chose were consistently rich and detailed. He has used the Super 35 mm brilliantly (much better than what K.V did with the same camera for Sivaji!). There is life in every frame and it brings out that life as a visual inside your mind. Nirav’s shot selections are top notch, perfectly by the grammar. The colour-saturated images have all come out as planned by the looks of it. It looks like Nirav was having a field day out there. Nirav’s amazing lighting sense (mainly pictorial) was a feather in his cap as in certain shots; he relied on his foot-candles! For example, the scene where Velu and Prabu speak in the night about how Velu has to act like Billa. Look close into Ajit’s facial lighting. It would be divided into two halves, one with dark blue and another with the yellow from the lamp in the house! I presume this signifies the transition that is going to happen! Velu to Billa, happiness to cynicism, bright to dark, Yellow to Blue! Superb Nirav!

Now, to Thala, The Ultimate Star . Ajith’s undoubted ability as a Hero, which makes up for his modest natural acting skills, has to be appreciated. Ajith as Billa in the movie would have made Rajnikanth praise and King Khan’s hair raise! Ajith as Velu, the Billa Dupe, on the other hand does not carry that much colour like how Rajnikanth and Shah Rukh entertained us with their dupe roles. That’s something both Ajit and Vishnu might regret in retrospect as they had a chance to entertain the masses consistently with the Velu role after the visual classy treat of Billa the Don! They only did so in few places like “Athu aaru thalai, Naan oru thalai “ and “ Enna Kodumai Sir ithu “ as on other occasions, Velu’s verses were pretty natural and stale. Anyways, Credit where it’s due, Ajith performed beautifully as the original Billa with the lack of long dialogues. His actions spoke louder than his words for once and the elegance he carried made us envy his walking-on-water attitude in the movie.


Now here is an inside news that you won't get in any other blog , Ajith did the rope swinging scene from thousand feet high bridge with absolutely no cushion to fall on if things went wrong . He only had ropes catching hold of him and not very strong ones. Also , the car chase scene started out well with the drift but got a bit tired as it went on. Credit to Ajith again for doing the car sequences on his own.

At the end of the day , Ajith’s overall performance just makes you sub-consciously admire this guy and back him blindly as the ambassador for the post Rajni-Kamal generation . Herd mentality is human nature , we all carry it and eventually , we would have a thala fanatic/veriyan inside us if Ajith continues to do such quality movies. How could you possibly disagree with me? He has got the look, the backing, and affordable acting ability and do you want to be one against a million or one amongst a million? I prefer the latter, so Aijth Kumar IN!!


An unsung warrior of some sorts in this movie is Yuvan Shankar Raja . Excellent Background Music on all occasions. This has to rank amongst his best works. The guitar in the Billa Theme added electricity to Thala. Speaking of the songs, picturization of them have been a letdown of some sorts. “ Naan Meendum “ song was just uncalled for story-wise and it was pretty much the mundane beach video we ve seen many times. “ Sei Ethavathu Sei “ had some hot girls in it and some great lighting by Nirav but that was just about it. The above mentioned 2 songs are no match to the ones we saw in Don under the same scenario . “ Vethalaya Potendi “ was the biggest disappointment because it was my favourite of the album. Such a great foot tapping number that had life less shots , few inter cuts , poor steps and a very lazy effort in terms of visual ambience creativity ( blame it on Vishnu ! Refer to Khal Ke Paan song from Don for further proof). “ Seval Kodi “ on the other hand, had almost scored on all aspects for a wonderful song video except for Ajith dancing with a stiff face! Ajith is famous for his wonderful expressions and lipping during the songs but he lives up to it in “ My Name is Billa “ and saves us some grace if some Northy-walla compares it with “ Main Hoon Don “ . Absolute majestic body language from Ajith and Nirav once again, elevates him to esteemed position in our hearts with that song.

Now for the finishing touches! Namitha was a nobody once again . How many more meaningless roles is she going to do ? She is an obvious commodity for the B n C Centres in this film and they are sure going to gagaga over her attire. Nayanthara on the other hand has shown some faint promise with her role, though it’s nothing near the role Priyanka Chopra had! I keep reverting to Don because there are many places where it scores more than Billa . There was simply no chemistry between Ajith and Nayanthara because Vishnu avoided it due to resemblance to Don I suppose. Also , the transition from revenge to friendship for Nayanthara was not shown that well. But yeah , Nayanthara looked hot on the whole, dresses great and yes , I dropped my jaw for that bikini scene ( I’m a honest critic , admit it now !! Ha ha ) . These 2 ladies are there to add the gloss for the A centre and give the B n C centres something to chew about . Nothing more in my opinion.

The action sequences do deserve a lot of mention as Billa had exaggerated fight sequences but as I mentioned before , it had a grace and some homework behind it. Nirav Shah shot the fight sequences neatly. Last but not the least ,casting could have been better as Billa’s comrades didn’t look that fitting ( the costume and cinematography saved them ! ) and that’s just about it .

On the whole , Vishnu has taken a huge risk of entering into the market of the masses with Ajit and the yester year fame of Superstar . He has done his cause no harm you could say , even though he could have gone places with Billa ! He has Ajith and Nirav Shah to thank for because they really carry this film from start to finish . Billa is yet another dimension to commercial Tamil Cinema with less dialogue tracks , less melodrama and histrionics and more of of visual narration , technical beauty and a royal overall treatment. Vishnu failed to maximize his score in places where he went Mani Ratnam-ish ( the not so funny yet apparently smart one liners , the underplayed single word replies etc ) and gave me an incomplete feeling of some sorts with respect to my expectations from the director of Pattiyal. He made up for it with his overall sensible and safe handling of the screenplay. I’m a tad disappointed as a film critic with Billa as it could have been far more entertaining for the class it carried but as a common man (he is the one who counts eventually), I just can’t ask for more. Hope you could spot that difference in this review.

Cheers , have a good Billa December !

Evano Oruvan - An abnormal story of a normal man

Review by: SA

Ok , it's 2 AM out here and I've gathered all my energy and spirit together to come up with a summary of my thoughts (if you are looking for a run-of-the-mill review for a run-of the-mill film, STOP!) before hitting the bed and concluding what would be one of the proudest days in my life as a cinema fanatic , tamil cinema fanatic and most importantly, Maddy fanatic! Yes, I guess some of you should be knowing me very well by now and you may as well know that I'm not everyone's boy next door!! I ve been a very harsh critic of Madhavan in the past (not in public! In person to him via mails and stuff) - But all of that got converted today into emotion, respect and pride for R.Madhavan and his mercurial brilliance.

I luckily got the ticket for the premieres of Evano Oruvan and despite all protests from parents (for it being a night show), I made it to the movie and sat all by myself. I will describe the movie in short for you people as I'm sure you are all gonna watch it (as you've read past my disclaimer above) and know about it yourself. It's one of the best PARALLEL CINEMA EVER MADE IN TAMIL CINEMA in my opinion! You cannot compare it with commercial cinema and with MIDDLE CINEMA (Anbe Sivam, Nayagan etc). This is more along the international film making pattern of story telling and movie making and Evano Oruvan ranks with cult movies like Kurudhipunal and Veedu.

Recently we saw a movie called Katradhu Tamizh , which had a similar outbreak of a man but it was very radical , very extreme and very lop sided ( in the law of averages ) . But Evano Oruvan teaches it a good lesson as it puts to shame CINEMATIC REALISM by portraying ABSOLUTE REALISM in the classiest of manners.

The movie brings out the inner demon inside us and puts him/her to shame while it also brings out the fiery social hero inside and asks him to WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE ! Storywise , I'm gonna reveal nothing - I would be doing injustice to the creator of this masterpiece if I talk about the story. But one thing for sure, it's about each one of us at some point of our lives!! This has to be one of the most realistic, heart felt, social, thoughtful and passionately formed story in Tamil Cinema after a long time (Katradhu Tamil, a notable ally!)

Screenplay and direction wise, it's awesome as the movie is basically about what happens in a man's life in about 2 days! JUST 2 days and the world turns upside down for him . The way Nishikanth managed to show all the vital things within the screenplay by the introduction sequence in the movie where the daily lifestyle of Sreedhar Vasudevan is shown, is simply great thinking as he saved up time and told it slickly! The sequences keep moving on perfectly, establishing all the necessary characters and twists. No scene is too long or too short , unnecessary or irritating. Still, you'd need patience to watch the movie as though the running time is short, the sequences were very DEMANDING and some of the weaker minds might lose their focus early on, in this screenplay. But nothing can be done about that as if everyone could be satisfied, then God would lose his job up above; so keeping mortal limitations in mind, the screenplay was pin perfect. I'm still amazed about how a guy who has no clue about the tamizhans and their pulse, has picked up the right issues and made people emote in the right way to bring out the right message! At one point of time, as an aspiring film maker myself, I was melted to worthless liquid when i watched a scene where Maddy spoke like King Alexander while reciting a scathing letter in flowing english to God in the middle of the road in midnight near the Railway station. Even though the performance of Maddy in that scene was so touching and mind blowing, the idea to come up with something like that is fantastic and unexplainable of some sorts! Nishikanth really has shocked all of us with his handling of the screenplay and Direction. All the supporting cast were gelled into the movie that at no point did you feel like how you usually do in commercial movies these days that the supporting cast are giving a carefree performance! Nishikanth made it a point to get a firm grip on every inch of this movie, Hats off!!

I'm not supposed to be saying this but i almost cried today for the way Maddy struggled in the movie as Sreedhar Vasudevan. It made me feel hurt and passionate - about the issues dealt with. All my criticisms of Maddy the "Star" kept flying out of my mind as every scene went by. "Ivaraya da criticize panine?" nu sollara nelamaiku ennoda Conscience vanthuduchu! It's like a teacher student relationship. The harshest teacher is the most happiest when the student comes out with flying colours. The teacher was harsh in the first place because she cared so much bout the student n had to take some stick for it from all angles when she accepted to take this kid into her stride. So what better way than a centum score in the board exams by her loved one!! Anyways, I dunno if this movie is going to plant a change in the society or not. Even if it does, it will only be temporary as we are in a monotonous system where we will eventually revert back to the old practises to which we are exposed more. So I'm sure Maddy is not counting on social changes. But I know that with every palm aching clap of mine, I made 10 people around me clap during the movie's scintillating scenes and made them FEEL RESPONSIBLE and associated with this movie. There are a lot of people in the theatres who kept moaning and groaning! I hope they are reading this and I just want to tell them to - Buzz Off! I hope they are offended badly because these people really tarnish our industry big time. The efforts put into this movie really don't deserve the crap they threw at it. I know that cinema is here to entertain, but once in a while, when you unearth a gem like this, come in and treat yourself to somethin different!

Now , about the Cinematography. Easily the best I've seen for a long time in Tamil Cinema. It's called pictorial cinematography and man, it kept it's name and redefined it. The lighting was of international standards. You had so many extreme close ups in this movie more than any Tamil Movie i can remember. Yet, those extreme close ups were just a bridge to take you into the eyes and see the world of atrociies like how Sreedhar Vasudevan saw! The movements of the crane shots were perfectly used and the night shots had come out brilliantly. The visuals really made you live the role of Sreedhar Vasudevan and it connected those dialogs into your sensory cells! Without such brilliant cinematography, many a message would have been lost in this movie. So, hats off to Sanjay Yadav. He is going to go places surely. Naturally, with such a firm screenplay and hard hitting visuals, editing it was the most enjoyable and easiest job to do for Amit Pawar.

Art by Nagu was very good during the jail scenes and Maddy's house scenes - highly natural and detailed. The BGM was another asset to this movie as the dialogs and acting being the vital organs, the BGM had to be used intelligently and did not have a prominent role like how it usually does. Instead, the silence throughout this movie was a BGM in itself and we are made to feel the pain with that silence and out of the blue, the BGM takes us into a swing and swirls through many emotions! And GV Prakash's final song is like the final substitute coming on in the last minute and scoring the 6th goal in a 6-0 drubbing! The song was there to make us leave with dramatic vibes and finish on an inspiring note. Excellent song!!

The dialogs by Maddy - easily matched Mani Sir's standards and I'm a Mani Sir fanatic as well, so you can guess the level to which Maddy's dialogs impressed and pulsated me. The dialogs had content in it every time! Full of honesty and at the same time, it had the nerve pricking words as well. I'm shocked that being a fanatic of Madhavan, I never saw this fantastic ability of his coming ! His rally call in English to the one up above in the middle of the road during midnight where he recites a letter saying he cannot follow this mechanical lifestyle anymore was simply FANTASTIC ! It made me stand up and applaud this man's sincerity and passion as the character and the writer .

Evano Oruvan is a parallel cinema that is taking Tamil Cinema to WORLD CLASS STANDARDS! That includes some brilliant casting by Latha Menon , right from the junior artists to the supporting artists. Very fitting and professional. The acting of Seeman was inspirational because he made me respect the POLICE SHIRT again. Class!! Simply Class!! Never knew he was such a great talent. Maddy was right about him. Credit to the director for sketching out a RARE breed of policeman to the ones we are always seeing in Tamil Cinema. Vetrimaran the cop was a good cop, with good values and all that but he also proved to be human and loyal. If you had seen the same character in an English movie, you would have been going ga ga by now. But such is the cheap impact of commercial tamil cinema, we don't know the value of certain ingenious WORKS! Likewise, Sangeetha - she outclassed her performance in Pithamagan. Such an irritating character - Vasanthala, but she made us watch it with so much ease and thrill. I almost started choking during a penultimate scene of hers with Maddy! Praise her for waiting and choosing the right roles like this instead of going and playing teddy bear to a foolish Box Office controlling modern day Hero!!

And hey, what do you say about our man R.Madhavan?! His performance in this movie was the reason I've been waging wars with every tom and dicky and harry for all these years now with respect to Cinema. I knew something was like this was due from him and I stuck by it. This is what i wanted as i was fighting a lost cause so far and had lost all my weaponry. Evano Oruvan just gave me a Bazooka :D ... Sreedar Vasudevan is R.Madhavan's BEST PERFORMANCE EVER! And one of tamil cinema's greatest performances ever - Easily! I was the last person to leave the theatre hall - it was so emotional and inspirational for me. I felt like I had a dose of courage, strength and pride instilled in me all of a sudden and it was all down to Maddy's performance. An ingenious performance of some sorts. He did an AL PACINO when he was speaking to god in the middle of the road! Breathtaking performance. Nobody can match this performance except for Kamal and Vikram you could say! Let me reaffirm my stance all over again - after Alaipayuthe , Kannathil Muthamital , Anbe Sivam , Ayudha Ezhuthu and even Thambi - you can add a performance and a movie that makes these predecessors open their mouth wide in awe. So the movie ended at around 12 30 and i waited outside, saw Ajith and other stars leave . Ajith was pretty smart and in the Kandukonden Kandukonden movie get up! Far thinner but. He came in sharp on time, no fuss and left bang on time, no fuss! Hope he learnt a thing or two about acting from Maddy because as the next big thing in our industry, he needs to be more responsible as an ACTOR here after.

Anyways, my poor brother was waiting for my to come and then only lock the gates, so I called him and told him it's going to take some time for me to come home as I wanna wait for Maddy to come out. So I waited in the really cold parking area of Satyam Theatres and almost everybody left cos it was getting late. Only a few of us were remaining and then Maddy came out! Till then, I was reluctant to go to meet the stars, I just watched from afar but when Maddy came, I felt like someone pushed me to go talk to him. I felt like someone whispered to me - " Poda poi pesu da , it's your moment ! " - So i went, I waited for a old man to finish his words and then I shaked hands with maddy and said - "Hi Maddy, remember me?" Maddy smiled and said - "NO !! " .. he he :) So i told him - "SA from the fan club !! :) ..." - Then his face kind of smiled because he remembered the various run ins we ve had and he said - "aah yes, sure do .. did you like the movie ? how was it ? " - But by that time , I started to shiver (it was already cold and meeting Maddy after any other normal movie wud not have given me this nervousness! But after this awesome movie, I had a million things to say but it broke down as million fragments - meaning, I started BLABBERING! ha ha ) ... "Yep, saw it Maddy, it was oustanding! I'm proud .. I .. dunno .. say .... what .. to ... blah blah " ...I didnt want to make a fool out of myself because I was literally tongue tied and at the same time, kai kuduthathe pothum (shaking hands was enough), let Maddy enjoy his glory!! So then, another man (who was grumbling all that while about Maddy taking so much time to come out and kept showing off about he ain't gonna bother staying around blah blah !! ) interuppted my conversation with Maddy ABRUPTLY and started speaking to Maddy like as if he was waiting all this while with hope!! he he ... I gave him a weird look saying - "ada paavi, enna laam scene potte Maddy varathuku minnadi! :D" Then I went and spoke to Saritha as I've never had the chance to speak with her before and she was standing right next to these people and thankfully, she was just looking on! Introduced myself in an embarassing way to her as I was sure she would know me for the unpopular reasons more (a bit of history between me, Maddy and Saritha! forget that for now!), so I pointed that out and then she immediately recognized me :) ... lol .. She was very sweet and she made me feel little warm .. She asked me if I liked the movie and I said something alone the lines of - "So proud .. today was what I was waiting for .. very proud to be .... " and I started choking after that! ... lol ... damn!! But anyways, such is the charm of these scripts that, not everythin takes place smoothly \. It has its ebbs and it has its highs .. For the joy I encountered in the last 5 hours, I don't mind not being able to translate my feelings properly to Maddy and Saritha!! I can't ask for more, can I? But hey, apparently, even if I don't want to ask, Maddy had the ICING on the cake cos after speaking to Saritha, I wanted to leave Maddy to enjoy his moment and not bug him much, so I tried making a decent exit, that time, Maddy himself said aloud amidst being mobbed by ppl - "Hey ... BYE S.A" ...That to me , Completed the year 2007, I don't care if there are 23 days more to go, for me, the year ends HERE with Maddy's gesture. Period! Mudinju POchu! ennaku ithu pothum for the next decade !! :) ..

So then I left and reached home at 1 30 AM ! And first thing I did was apologize to our Maddy fan called Santhy Nicholas as she asked me to tell Maddy that she said HI! But I was already frozen upstairs (in my brain that is!) and I totally forgot that! So I'm very sorry Shanthy :( .. If at all Maddy would be reading this, he will surely tell you that I was not in the best position to think outside the box, when I met him! he he ..

Thus came to an end yet another wonderful chapter as a Maddy fan. I know that it's not going to be like this always as his forth coming movies are different and are not going to be of this level. But hey - Lets take things as they come, so for now, I'm gonna be angelic as i really have no other choice after being flattered by the angels themselves!! Good night all, go watch Evano Oruvan and revitalize your Maddy spirits :) ... Evano Oruvan is like our Graduation Day from college of R Madhavan Arts and Entertainment !!

Sums it up :) Gnite :) Or shud i say , good morning ( took a long time to write it and u took a long time to read it i suppose ! Sorry for the effort ! )

SA