Raavan – review

There was a director by name Mani Ratnam who gave wonderful movies with his forte being strong script and story telling. Raavan credit titles shows it is Mani Ratnam movie but the director is completely missing in this movie.

Beera is a fearsome tribal leader liked and equally feared by many. Dev is posted in Lal Maati , the fiefdom of Beera on a mission to finish off Beera. Soon, Beera kidnaps Dev’s wife Ragini. And what follows is a Ramayan with a twist, bad becomes to show traces of  good but in end  good triumphs over bad cunningly. This is the story in nut shell.

The problem with Raavan is that the  simple story is taken in a picturesque location but over-dramatized and scripted badly and painfully told lagging at many times and ending up with yawns in theater. Neither the action scene are compelling nor the acting of the lead characters captivating.

Abhishek tapping his head and uttering bak bak bak as a mannerism fails to impress us and Vikram, a good actor he is in Tamil films,  is undermined and looses the command over the character but it can only be  blamed on the director. Aishwarya looks hapless and awkward with her dialogues (blame it on the script and not her)  Govinda comes as a forest guard who guides Dev and his team through the forests. In his introduction screen, he jumps around like monkey and also manage to meet Ragini at Beer’s den.  Hanuman’s inspiration eh? The only character that looks at ease with himself is Ravi Kishan who comes as Abhisheks’ brother.

Another biggest let down comes with A R Rahman’s back ground music. At times , he tries to bring a more dramatization with his music but the end result in screen just does not go well.  Maniratnam’s movie boast of good cinematography so does this one too. Santhosh Sivan and Manikandan have handled well their portion but the settings of ancient temple and Vishnu sculpture in river etc deprives the movie of the rustic original charm that movie like Omkara reflected. Maniratnam seems to have fallen into the trap of Bollywood’s glamour and over-doing things where it is not required.

GingerChai verdict: I can’t still believe this is Maniratnam’s movie. Highly disappointing.