Jithindurden

Ven though the story itself is not anything new, the screenplay brilliantly makes it feel fresh. The way, the film shows the events of one night slowly giving the audience information piece by piece and letting us solve the puzzle for the most part while keeping the tension alive was so fun. The rawness of everything around was elevated by the great performances, obviously expected from Vikram but also most of the other cast. The flashback portion in the middle felt a little bit unnecessary and slowed down the film but the way it ended was satisfactory. The drama and the rawness were strong points of the film but the action itself was mostly just okay when everything surrounding it was really great. The action scene near the end was a bit of a mess. Narratively, it makes sense because how even at that point the characters are revealing their intents and character by their actions but it was shot in a weird way. The way a lot of small, small things are connected to the main story, a reveal at the very end which shows how everything happened because of coincidences that were meant to be and connected to each other way more than we thought was very interesting as well as giving a bit of levity after all the brutality.

The decision to call this Part 2 still feels a bit gimmicky and just a promotion tactic. There's not really much need for a part 1 but if they make it, they better make it worthy of this.

I am happy to finally watch a Vikram film from the theater and be satisfied. The screenplay was brilliant but there were a few compromises without which this could've been truly great.

Basically a 70s soap opera condensed into two hours. There are a lot of sex scenes which if they'd decided to make it a bit more lengthy, could've been a softcore porn. Heck, the 70s porn industry known to be in its golden age would've made a better film out of this same story. The degeneracy of the filthy rich shown might be true but then it should be shown as that or the characters should be given some depth. Here it's neither and it ends up almost hilariously bad. With a stellar cast like Laurence Olivier, Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, etc, the cast is very charming and the actresses also try their best to be way better than what's on paper just with their natural charm and it did work to a point. But the writing is so bad that nothing is enough to salvage this mess and the male actors seemed to know it better as they didn't really try to bring out their acting chops, just their charming side. But when the movie wants the audience to be sympathetic to the characters or want to be invested in their emotions, romance, heartbreak, greed, etc, it comes off as very absurd. The only thing you really feel is disgust but the music and the visual composition are asking to side with those characters. If the film wants us to side with them, it needs to show somewhat relatable aspects for it. When the most charitable thing a character does is give an enormous amount of money to a young girl for sleeping with him without her asking him, it's just absurd, that they expect the audience to be sympathetic to his other actions, however pragmatic and well-intentioned they seem.

The visual effects were probably the best part of the movie. You really feel like you are also trapped in that ocean during this storm. The initial setting up, albeit being cheesy worked really well and forms the emotional core of the movie. All the relationships really worked for me and that really carried the whole movie emotionally. Because considering the changes to the true story, this kind of makes the crew look like morons even when the music tells you otherwise. There are so many stupid decisions shown in the movie that are all fiction. Even with all that, the cast was very charming and all the relationship stuff worked really well to make it really enjoyable.