Grandmaster review

Finally, I managed to watch a Malayalam movie, that too in a cinema hall and that too featuring the best Malayalam star, Mohanlal.

Grandmaster is pretty riveting. It is an investigative thriller where a maverick senior cop (Chandrashekhar) goes about digging the truth behind a series of murders that are apparently by a serial killer. The victims have their names in alphabetical order starting from A through to C. The person up next is Deepthi who happens to be the divorced wife of our supercop. He succeeds in stopping this killing and also gets to know the real motive behind these killings. The killer is also not who we are led to believe since the start. 

The final portion of the movie where all the mysteries are solved is pretty interesting and well knit. If only, the English dialogs spoken on screen had been pronounced correct, the scenes could have been more authentic. 

The rock song that comes when the action is really gripping is a big downer. Other than that the BGM score by Deepak Dev is a major plus point for the movie. Of course Lal has arresting screen presence, majesty and grace to pull off this serious cop role with ease. He is the single most compelling reason to watch the movie. His struggles in the action scenes are evident though. 

Then we have the trim and smart Narain, a serious looking Priyamani and an embarrassingly bloated Anoop Menon to complete the cast. Babu Antony's makeover is pretty dirty and badly done. Scenes showing the correlation with the chess board remind us of 'Mankatha'

VERDICT: On the whole, this one is pretty interesting and doesn't have major compromises with respect to the central premise. Watch-worthy for sure.

Vishnuvardhana (2011)

Vishnu is the son of a local laundry vendor but, he wants to make it big. He is a big fan of superstar Vishnuvardhan. On an occasion, he loots the cell phone of a big Bangalore don named Adisesha. He uses that phone, answers all the incoming calls and gets some easy extortion money.

He also poses as a doctor to get his dream girl Bharathi. Later he also has to deal with Adisesha's good-natured, sexy wife who wants her evil and immoral husband dead.

Adisesha uses a corrupt policeman (and partner in crime) to nab the guy who has his phone. Adi also gets a job to kill the guy who is posing as a doctor to woo Bharathi. Vishnu meanwhile enters Adi's own circle and literally plays around with him. Adi comes to know in the end that it is Vishnu who is the man in question in both scenarios. Finally, the hero succeeds as expected and banishes Adi and the corrupt policeman.

Hits

• Sudeep's comic sense is very likable and his dialog delivery style is similar to superstar Rajinikanth's. The guy is tall, elegant and definite star material
• Bhavana and Priyamani are pure eye candies with the latter having some scope for performance in the 2nd half. Sonu Sood makes his debut in Kannada and he looks mean
• The comedians appeal majorly to the local crowd. 
• The songs are all foot-tapping with the opening number the pick of the lot. 
• Every time Vishnuvardhan's name or image is on screen, the crowd literally goes wild in celebration
• Quite an intelligent and entertaining screenplay. 

Misses

• The scene where the hero saves the baby and the pregnant mother is funny. 

VERDICT

A sure-shot hit with tremendous title value and an interesting premise.