Monday Jan 12 2009, Chennai

A Aa E Ee

Genre - Others

Directed by - Sabapathy Datchana Moorthy

Produced by - AVM Kumaran

Music by - Vijay Antony

Casts - Prabhu, V.M.C. Haneefa, Manorama, Ganja Karuppu, Sathyan, Satish, Vasuvikram

Starring - Navdeep, Aravind, Monika, Saranya Mohan

This Dakshinamurthy film seems like a poor caricature of the kitsch family dramas of the '70s and '80s!

It could be described as a film that is horribly ill-made and out of touch with the times.

The film is a remake of Krishna Vamsi's film in Telugu, 'Chandamama'. The first 20 minutes is difficult viewing as unwanted comedy is thrust into the proceedings and Prabhu's 'Ayurveda' hardsell is jarring. Perhaps, the silver lining is the climax on the wedding stage and how things are resolved.

Subrahmanyam is a respected Ayurvedic doctor(Prabhu) who lives happily with his only daughter Anita( Monika), and his brother's family. The doting father that he is, Subramanyam locates a groom in Elango(Arvind) so that his daughter wouls stay on in the same village. But his daughter loves Akash(Navdeep), her collegemate. One can easily imagine the trend of the story from hereon right? Every character in the film is happy in the end, but not the audience.

Manorama and Haneefa excel in their roles and at their natural best, whereas Prabhu looks his patented stiff self. Navdeep and Arvind put in reasonably good performances, while Monika goes over the top in emotional scenes. anja Karuppu's comedy is painful, to say the least.

Other than the peppy tunes of Vijay Antony and the well-made songs, there is nothing much to write home about!

-FS News Desk