Things don’t seem as grim for the Indian entertainment industry after both the Maharashtra and Kerala governments announced the reopening of theatres on October 22 and October 25, respectively.
Besides this announcement, big banner films like Pushpa, RRR, and Maanaadu announced their release dates, along with several Hindi language films.
As more films make their way to the big screen and audiences make up their minds about the week’s most entertaining cinema, Silverscreen India sums up the responses of critics to films that released this week.
This Tamil-language film sees Hip-hop Tamizha Aadhi writing, directing and acting in the lead role. It also sees Madhuri Jain as the female protagonist. The story revolves around Sivakumar, a young man from a weaving family, who vows to restore his family business to its past glory by taking on a textile magnate.
Sinndhuja who reviewed the film for Silverscreen India called the film “an inherently boyish fantasy of an unevolved filmmaker – and adult,” which tries to make a hero out of Aadhi.
“The bar is so low that you hope it doesn’t have too many instances to showcase its misogyny or box wrong ideas into the wide-eyed impressionable young men in the theatre,” she said.
Baradwaj Rangan of Film Companion reflected similar sentiments calling the film “silly and spoof-like,” said, “The problem is not the songs, comedy or fights, but the sameness. There’s a complete lack of effort to make the film look different.”
Haricharan Pudipeddi of Hindustan Times noted that neither the actor nor does his audience take his films seriously.
“Sivakumarin Sabadham is yet another film which relies largely on mindless comedy and a very predictable plot about a reckless youngster finding purpose in his life.”
The film has an IMDb rating of 6.6.
Lift is a horror film about two IT employees being haunted by spirits in their office. Directed by Vineeth Varaprasad, it features actors Kavin and Amritha in lead roles.
While the film received mixed reactions from critics, almost everyone commended it for drawing a parallel between the metaphor of a lift with the trapped lives of individuals in the corporate world.
Arunkumar Sekhar of Silverscreen India, called it a rare film that comes with one of the best horror experiences in Tamil cinema because of its first hour.
“It uses more psychological means to induce horror than your regular jump scares. And it uses the motif of the lift inside a corporate building to signify the trappings of everyday human life – one of the existential themes that the film boldly tackles”.
Praveen Sudevan of The Hindu likened Lift to “carnival horror houses” that have fragments from every genre, and called it a confused film.
For Vishal Menon of Film Companion, the malfunctioning elevator is metaphor of an IT career.
“It gives us the illusion of a person rising through their ranks in their career. The elevator also lets you feel that you can leave at any point. But this too is an illusion of a place where one can “check-out any time you like but you can never leave.”
The film has a current rating of 7.5 on IMDb.
Mohan G‘s Rudra Thandavam which revolves around a police officer who surrenders himself out of the guilt of committing a crime, has been considered as a work which has been created to establish the director’s ideology. It has been embroiled in controversy even prior to its release, as the director’s previous venture Draupathi seemed to justify casteism.
The film featured actors Richard Rishi, Dharsha Gupta, and Gautham Vasudev Menon, in lead roles.
According to Arunkumar Sekhar of Silverscreen India, “where the director falters is in providing a sympathetic gaze to a person with power with no realisation or acknowledgement of said power by the person throughout the film’s runtime. This means that the cop’s ‘benevolent dictator’-like actions are affirmed consistently.”
Srivatsan S of The Hindu drew parallels between the director’s ideology and racial crimes like George Floyd’s death and called the film fundamentally wrong.
Baradwaj Rangan of Film Companion, said that despite its shortcomings, the film stuck to the issue at hand- drug menace among youth in Chennai- and did not use it as just a backdrop.
Both Srivatsan and Rangan further pointed out that Menon character as the antagonist was one-dimensional.
The film has an IMDb rating of 7.
Shiddat (Disney+ Hotstar)
The Kunal Deshmukh directorial that features Sunny Kaushal, Radhika Madan, Diana Penty, and Mohit Raina in lead roles, follows two parallel love stories.
Film critics found Shiddat to be problematic as it tends to glorify stalker behaviour.
For Aswathy Gopalakrishnan of Silverscreen India, Shiddat was characterized by toxic male gaze. She called Kaushal’s character a variant of Arjun Reddy.
“Shiddat is an infuriating film that flattens out a complicated plot, centred on a man’s self-destructive obsession, into a delusional account about soulmates.”
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Rahul Desai of Film Companion reflected similar sentiments and added that the film “somehow uses three solid actors – Sunny Kaushal, Radhika Madan and Mohit Raina – to suggest that there is nothing quite as aspirational as a mentally unstable male blinded by love.”
Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV said that the film tries hard to pass itself as a modern, progressive love story that believes in female agency, but “that is a losing battle because the boy who forces her hand is somebody who needs urgent counselling.”
Shiddat has an IMDb rating of 7.8.