A movie and book review blog

Showing posts with label romantic comedies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label romantic comedies. Show all posts

May 18, 2011

Tanu Weds Manu

Tanu weds Manu is a new-age Hindi rom-com starring R.Madhavan(Manu) and Kangana Ranaut(Tanu) in leading roles. It is an interesting movie at many levels at the same time there is something missing from its core. To me that something missing was the lack of believability of Tanuja Trivedi aka Tanu's character. She is a small town girl exposed and transformed by big city glitz thanks to a stint at Delhi University. Her boyfriends are temporal as Julian Assange's looks. She smokes, drinks and swears in abandon. In short she is Billy Joel's woman. Now what is guy like Manu(Madhavan) - docile and homely, doing with The Piano Man's rambunctious lady is anybody's guess.

Tanu is overly made-up all the time, that seems to be a Kangana Ranaut trademark. Madhavan is older, chubbier, but his understated acting keeps it in tune with his character. There is nothing that keeps you at the edge about the story, it has all been said and done in the title itself. In the absence of excitement in the big picture, it is the small stuff that help us stay in our seats,the little goodies in the film in no particular order are,
  • Deepak Dobriyal's earthy and natural right-hand man act as Pappi.
  • Jimmy Shergill, in a small but crucial role with a heart-rending closing dialog which all the toughies should learn by heart for their own good.
  • Kanpur and Kapurthala and the life and sights in small-town North India have been captured beautifully.
  • Most of the supporting actors have done their parts well, whether it is K.K.Raina or Rajendra Gupta, Eijaz Khan or Swara Bhaskar.


Share:

Oct 24, 2006

Poocha Sanyasi

One of the first full length comedy films in Malayalam, Poocha Sanyasi (1981) stars Raj Kumar in the leading role as the flirtatious playboy son of a millionaire businessman(K. P. Ummer). I wonder how Raj Kumar came to play lead role in Malayalam movies, he obviously doesn’t look anything like a Malayali, infact to me he looks a typical Kannadiga or Konkani. Anyway the guy did a load of Malayalam movies in the early eighties, most of them in the comedy genre.
  
Rajkumar and Madhavi in Poocha Sanyasi 

Coming back to the movie, since the leading man is a playboy there is a bevy of beauties surrounding him in the first half and in the second half he is blissfully (bliss will soon be lost as his former girl friends start plotting against him) married to Madhavi(again a non-Kerala import who tried hand in Bollywood movies where success eluded her that she had to move Malayalam, she was a strong presence in Malayalam movies in the eighties.) The wife(Madhavi) was chosen by the playboy’s strict disciplinarian father(K. P. Ummar) to correct son of his wandering ways. Comedians Bahadur, Kuthiravattam Pappu and Sukumari have major roles as well. A surprise role was that of Balan.K Nair, who excelled in villain roles during this period, but has an interesting part as an Anglo-Indian party-animal, the brother of one of the girl friends who morphs in to a convincing villain in the climax scenes. I also glimpsed Silk Smitha – the one-time sex siren of the South as an extra in one of the dances.
Share: