Reviews

Overview: First of all I'm quite surprised at the reception here, I should mention that due to the mature content in the film it is absolutely not for everyone but if you can look past it you're presented with a well constructed thriller of how one man's seemingly inconsequential mistake utterly ruins him. Knock Knock, a 2015 thriller by Eli Roth follows Evan Webber, a family man and architect who has an extramarital affair with two girls Bel and Genesis while his wife Karen is out of town with their kids, only to be shown that the girls have a sick hobby in psychologically torturing men and ruining their reputations.

The actual plot of the film is good, I would say the execution, imagery, acting performances, and utter feeling of dread and hopelessness created by the movie is even better. It doesn't really have any problems except that some scenes here and there drag on but that makes it realistic. The film starts off innocent enough showing Evan's family life and how it completely falls apart after he meets the girls and they seduce him. It's implied that the girls grew up abused and violated and that they project that upon others. Evan may have an unhappy marriage and makes no resistance to their seduction, we'll never know. All we know is that the one decision he makes here leads to the girls holding him hostage, destroying his house, physically and mentally torturing him to condemn him for cheating, and eventually pretending to kill him. The fact that what's presented in the film could possibly happen to anybody and scar them for good is indeed chilling. The only con I would say with the concept is that the handful of plot holes, where Evan could have made better decisions and the girls make zero effort to cover their tracks, which means they would get caught easily. They have also done this many times before but I can toss that aside in favor of the good aspects. This is indeed worth the watch but it's not something I would see for entertainment, it's not meant to be fun as opposed to unsettling, and if it frustrates you that means it worked.

Kabzaa is a 2023 period epic film created by R. Chandru, it's set in the 1970s and focuses on Arkeshwara, an Indian Air Force pilot who's forced into the life of a gangster after forming deadly rivalries in the lawless gang ridden world of Amarapuram. As one can imagine from seeing that fire trailer, by the way that's a 10/10 trailer, it takes heavy inspiration from KGF. The premise, plot, characters, and aesthetic all take inspiration from it, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it does struggle overall with originality and emotional weight which gives it heavy wasted potential.

The actual plot of the film is a bit too simple, it is for KGF too but they make the most of it by deeply exploring Rocky's characterization and the roles of his enemies. Kabzaa does this but merely brushes major parts off, and there's more exposition than action. But the story itself is followable, only minor confusion by the name dropping of the characters. It follows Arkeshwara leading a normal life until the upcoming election for Chief Minister changes the character's lives. Arkeshwara is in love with Madhumati, who's the daughter of a dreaded king Veer Bahadur, known for owning a massive slave force and being a powerful man during the British Raj. Due to the power vacuum he and multiple gang factions compete for power, leading to his rival gangster Khaleed and his son Sartaaj to start a shootout in Amarapuram. Arkeshwara's courageous brother Sarkeswhara kills Sartaaj and this act changes everybody. Khaleed butchers Sarkeshwara and this may be one of the most emotional parts, though it's quickly glossed over in favor of progressing the plot. Arkeshwara has previously been shown to be cowardly but is put in rage by this, and kills the police officer who betrayed him to Khaleed. Arkeshwara is forced to run and in a short span becomes a self taught gangster who's pit against Khaleed, but he does have help from Veer Bahadur who supports him. Eventually he is allied with Target, another gangster who was self taught like him, and he and his new allies turn against the other gangsters in the area including Bhangira and Malik. The problem is that these plot points happen too fast, these emotional troubles for the main character and characterizations of the villains could have been deeply explored, and they were to an extent in KGF.

The film gets slightly better in the third act than in the middle, when it's shown that Arkeshwara took charge of Bhangira's massive criminal empire for his own safety and had kids with Mandumati, much to the disapproval of Bahadur. It's shown that he craves Arkeshwara's power and despised his daughter for eloping with a gangster, so he turns on them both and kills his daughter's kids. I feel like Arkeshwara should have seen this coming but it can be excused. Bahadur sends the dreaded cop Bhargava Bakshi to apprehend Arkeshwara, but out of nowhere another gangster named Siddantha attacks both of them, and this is to be the plot for the sequel. Overall Kabzaa works as a movie, it has spectacular visuals and among the best soundtrack I've seen in film, it constantly gives you something to be excited about but the writing itself is flawed and you don't know what you're supposed to be feeling. It is worth watching however, heck unlike Rishab Shetty, R. Chandru can actually write a coherent story with likable characters. Hope the sequel can improve on the weak points of this film. I theorize that Siddantha was the gangster who killed Arkeshwara's father in the beginning of the film, and if it's true it would fit perfectly with an arc for the sequel.

Overview: Kidnap is a 2017 action thriller film written by Knate Lee, it focuses on Karla Dyson, an ordinary waitress and single mother who leads a normal life until she slips up and finds that her son Frankie is kidnapped by a couple Margo and Terry who are presumably involved in trafficking or ransom. It's a simple premise but the film takes the upmost advantage of this and will have you hooked as it shows a seemingly ordinary and helpless woman fighting and killing to get her son back.

I'll have to say that I don't think there are any cons with this film as evidenced by my rating, it doesn't have any flaws. The primary strength would be the dynamic plot, it hooks you from the very beginning where Karla is shown to have a generic bond with her son as one would expect, but this is heavily cemented in the ensuing chase for which I have to praise the acting and performances, and the tension created is more than satisfying. My favorite aspect of this is how seemingly grounded it is, and yet it presents an extraordinarily thrilling story of a mother doing whatever it takes as she speeds down the freeway trying to stop the abductors, and there are points she engages in fights with them. She's not a combatant, she's helpless, vulnerable, and fights for her life. It kind of reminds me of a masala film but instead of being comedically and outlandishly good at combat it's real and genuine. After the many struggles in real time she confronts the couple's leader and there's a satisfying moment where she bludgeons him in the face after seeing through his deception. She doesn't care that she could lose her own life and goes above and beyond to save her son. I'd like to watch this again sometime, other aspects of the film including technical are good but the fast paced thrilling plot is the central treat. I'd give this an 8.5.

Overview: Translating to "Heir", Varisu is an action drama originally created by Hari, this is the first of his films that I've seen. It focuses on Vijay Rajendran, the youngest son of Rajendran Palanisamy, a business tycoon. When Palanisamy is on the verge of death by pancreatic cancer he needs to pass down the company and picks Vijay despite having hated him for defiance and questioning of his authority after it's revealed that his other two sons Jai and Ajay have disgraced his legacy, Jai having neglected his family by having an affair and Ajay having embezzled money to pay off a debt to a fellow investor Mukesh. Mukesh works for Jayaprakash, a rival to Palanisamy who manages to expose both of these secrets. The plot follows Jai and Ajay attempting to use violent means to dispatch their own brother and steal the company, until Vijay manages to reform them after a series of emotional predicaments.

Pros:

Story/Writing/Themes: I'd like to get this out of the way. The only reason this has mixed reviews is because people who are not in the target audience saw this and think it's bad. Masala and cheesy comedy action are an acquired taste and have been a part of Indian cinema for a while, you have to suspend belief to enjoy it, and Varisu is among the more grounded. The overall plot and story is solid, the characters have realistic conflicts, emotions, all arousing from the fact that the family is dysfunctional and the sons of Palanisamy have been pit against each other viscously, having exhibited no love towards each other. Vijay is kicked out of the family for defying his father and opposing his cruel ways, including looking down upon the less fortunate. After returning from his exile to see his mother JP's exposure of Jay and Ajay leads to him getting the company, after which Vijay's two brothers attempt to repeatedly attack him. When Vijay manages to humbly outsmart them the brothers nearly give up until Jai's daughter is abducted by a trafficking ring. Vijay manages to fight his way into the kidnapper's territory and save her, earning Jai's respect. It's not cliche at all, he genuinely realizes his wrongs and finds enough love for his family to call off the affair and reconcile with them. This also follows with Ajay who's reformation is slightly weaker but he too asks Palanisamy for forgiveness upon being betrayed by Jayaprakash. In the end they attempt to make amends for their wrongs following their father's passing. Despite their severity Vijay forgives his brothers and preaches the value of family regardless of how they treated you. This is a debatable message but the fact that the brothers were sincerely remorseful makes it work.

Action: Vijay is a pro combatant which is a trope in much of Indian cinema. It can be defined as a flaw but it just makes the movie entertaining, as no matter what his brothers throw at him he manages to dodge. This isn't simply him being a Gary Stu, it's him being confident about himself and what his cause is, and a message of power that he cannot be put down. The fights are so entertaining that Vijay is essentially an epic movie protagonist. They try to mythologize this common man so much that there's a scene where he breaks a trafficker's arm, and the visual shows a purple light path on his hand as if he has some kind of superpower. You don't have to take it too seriously, it's intentionally goofy.

The other good aspects of this would be the cinematography, visuals, acting, and soundtrack, all of which were good. There are honestly no cons with this, it's just a matter of taste. The story, characters, technical aspects, and themes were all done well. It's a refreshing masala film that's good for a family.

First of all I should clarify that I find the backlash to this show completely unreasonable, primarily because it's a black comedy that gets criticized for doing exactly what shows like Family Guy does and that gets praised. Velma is an animated mystery crime adventure drama based off of the titular Scooby-Doo character, and reimagines her life in highschool with her friends Daphne, Fred, and Shaggy who has been renamed Norville in this. I have seen the first episode and upon watching multiple reviews of people's analysis on youtube I can understand why people didn't like it but it's not remotely as bad as they say. Velma has a serious problem with storytelling, character development, relatability, and tone.

From a technical perspective it passes all checks, it's well animated and drawn. I don't understand why everybody trashes the show's humor cause a lot of it is actually funny black comedy, the problem with a lot of them is relatability, much of the jokes are political based and forced, and have racial tendencies. Now I don't have a problem with this and I don't think anybody else does, cause again, Family Guy does this, American Dad, Fugget About It, I'm sure every other adult series does this, why should Velma be an exception? I suppose the only reason is because it's a Scooby Doo show, perhaps in that department I think differently since I was never a Scooby Doo fan. I never liked the concept, found it too silly, which is why I was initially interested in this show because I thought it would be suitable for me. However upon watching it it's pretty clear that they have a serious storytelling problem. The characters are too antagonistic towards each other for you to like them, and this could work if they develop or get punished which they don't a lot. There is no compelling story nor properly paced narrative, if the reviews I saw are accurate. The show seems to be very agenda driven and I'm not one of those overly critical watchers who nitpicks this, but I want them to fit with the story but they're usually forced as well. Episode 7 was particularly offensive to males, it depicts Velma disguising herself as one to use male privileges to get her way. I can confidentially say as a guy I've never assaulted anybody or impersonated a doctor, or gotten away with murder cause I'm a male. If these jokes were used cleverly to convey some kind of irony or if there was an outlier character who could correct these mindsets it wouldn't be as bad. I did see reviews and reactions to the finale as well, which reveals Fred's mother as the serial killer who's been plagueing the town and it's littered with cliche writing in which Velma's mother Diya was hypnotized after being used by Fred's mother to extract brains in order to find one to be implanted into her son's body. All in all the series appears to be boring and effortless in terms of story, it has unappealing characters overall which makes the whole show very unengaging and non memorable, but it's not super bad. The show is confirmed for a Season 2 and I believe if the writers change gears they have a lot of potential for a creative and funny story.

I feel like people absolutely do not know a good story when they see one, it makes me wonder what they see and think while watching. Anyway, Vedalam is a 2015 Kollywood epic gangster action drama created by Siva Jayakumar and boy what an emotional ride it was. Every aspect of this film is perfection, one may dismiss it as a generic masala but it's much more than that. Everything from the writing, pacing, characterizations, performances, technical aspects, action sequences, overall storyline, everything is taken to an eleven. This is up there with Kaithi and the Enthiran films.

The plot focuses on Ganesh, a seemingly ordinary civilian known for his excessive optimism and happy demeanor which earns the respect of even dangerous rowdies among other residents of Calcutta, where he moves to to enroll his sister Tamizh in an art college. They both eventually meet siblings Arjun and Swetha, who fall for them, and there are some comedic moments with Ganesh's boss Laxmidas, whom he works as cab driver under. None of these characters are flat, they all have a unique aesthetic and hilarious personalities that suit their actor performances well. The plot progresses we get to see more of the villainous characters, the siblings Rahul, Abhiney, and Aniket, who lead the French-Indo Cartel crime syndicate responsible for mass smuggling and trafficking. The characters too have unique aesthetics and vibes, and are all unapologetically ruthless, selfish, cunning, and remorseless. Rahul's reputation as a strategic crime boss is established in the hooking introduction, and we eventually see Ganesh get on their bad side and having been kidnapped by Aniket, where shockingly we see that he's capable of combat and brutallly kills him and his men. The emotional weight of the film is seen when we see his relationship with Tamizh, where the film details that he used to be a powerful gangster but reformed upon seeing the kindness of Tamizh's family, who were killed by the brothers, causing Ganesh to spend a year tracking them. Tamizh loses her memory in the attack, so another interesting subplot is seeing Ganesh carrying out his hits without his adopted sister finding out about his violent nature.

Every aspect of the film from soundtrack, cinematography, and editing all the way to writing, characterization, pacing, and emotional weight is perfect. The film constantly gets you excited and thrilled, and attached to the characters and their struggles. The scenes aren't wasted and even the songs usually convey importance about the plot, all in all it's one of the best films of 2015 and worth watching.

Kantara is a fantasy epic movie created by Rishab Shetty, focused on the conflict within a forest village between a hot headed hunter and Kambala champion Shiva and forest ranger Murali.

The movie glorifies animal cruelty as Shiva takes passion from exploiting bulls and happiness from killing animals. The landlord Devendra is his close friend and supporter, and Shiva constantly becomes a thorn on Murali's side. When Murali calls out Shiva's violent practices that endanger the forest wildlife or consume it's resources he and the villagers get into fights, not only with him but Shiva's temper causes him to fight other villagers. He also starts overhunting for fun and cutting down trees just to piss Murali off, which eventually leads to him getting arrested when he nearly kills Murali. All in all this is the majority of the movie, the potential here is that Shiva could have been humbled and reformed from his violent actions, specifically if the village demigod Panjurli taught him. Murali also could have been less violent and explained his cause for safeguarding the forest.

The movie is dragged out with this until it's revealed in a twist that Devendra was trying to acquire the land for himself out of greed, and Murali and Shiva quickly have a rushed reform despite the lack of reason too, as they had hurt each other not too long ago. When Devendra gathers men to try to destroy the village Shiva, Murali, and their armies clash with his, and Shiva gets possessed by Panjurli to defeat Devendra. The premise is good but the plot and execution is extremely bland, there was room for character development for interesting characters but nothing as such happened. Shiva was a firm believer in Panjurli, he could have started out as flawed and violent but learned an emotional lesson. Murali became friends with the villagers too quickly and was more victimized by Shiva, but he's still a villain. Shiva's girlfriend Leela could have been conflicted trying to settle the war. Devendra worked and the final battle between him and the villagers/rangers was good, but that was it.

The rest of the movie was quite boring and I could have easily improved the plot. I'm confused at why this has acclaim and I believe this of all movies does not remotely deserve it. This is not worth watching, but if you really want to, go for it.

Not perfect but it's very engaging and primarily talks about military strategy. It focuses on an unknown alien species wishing to conquer Earth for resources, and they send robots and drones to overwhelm Earth militaries and it also interviews real scientists and authors on the hypothetical eventuality of it. It is a documentary but is very much suited as a movie, could have easily been a science fiction action one. It follows a narrative and shows the events from just moments before the aliens land and an entire year following their invasion, to eventual victory. The alien craft, robots, and drones are well designed, it is thrilling and enjoyable, and I would watch it again.

This movie was a pain to watch. It takes everything funny and exciting about Singam and somehow downgrades it. Don't bother watching it, it's a scene for scene copy with conveniently bad acting and terrible humor. The main character Bijarao Singham has no emotions or anger, all that make Durai Singam who he is. However Jaikant Shikre, the counterpart to Mayil Vaaganam is slightly better than his original version as there's a subplot exploring a cop he pushed to suicide which was moderately interesting. However I wouldn't recommend this at all as entertainment. If you'd like to watch this while doing household work or just have it play in the background that would be nice.

This isn't a remake. This is just a mediocre attempt to knock off it's inspiration Vedalam, which is perfection. The budget and camerawork for this is cheap, the acting is trash. On top of this if you pay attention to the beginning where Ronnie (counterpart of Rahul) threatens the SWAT leader you can see that they STOLE FOOTAGE from Vedalam. They were so lazy they didn't bother making their own. They also stole script lines and plot ideas such as when the leading soldier says that they're going to arrest Ronnie on his private jet (which Rahul was doing in Vedalam) but Ronnie was actually in a building. The movie had many technical and writing flaws and the action is lackluster and boring. This was a serious waste of time and money, only good for being one of those cheap free youtube movies. Watch Vedalam, a masterpiece of Tamil cinema and not this knock off.