Sunday, September 18, 2011

Vanquisher became Vanquished-Part 2-

Vanquisher became Vanquished-Part 1-Hundreds are Hot

This was regarded to be the most high-profile series since the world cup.ICC even said they had shifted the venue of ICC awards from colombo to london because of this series.ESPN telecasted ads in which Flintoffisque type of person boasts how they tied with the champions and they were also world champions.Ravi Shastri Slammed England by saying that the oppositition were never world no 1and they do not have the rights to speak ill about bcci.Several Players were rested for West Indies tour because of the Importance this series had.And to top it all , a hundredth hundred was at stake throughout the series.

INDIA VS ENGLAND



Photo Courtesy:Cricinfo

The trouble started for India even before they boarded the plane,sehwag would miss the first 2 tests and the trouble just got alleviated on the first day of Lord's Test when India's prime,goto bowler Zaheer Khan was injured and was informed he could not take part further in the series.India lost their best swing bowler in the first day of the tour and from that day on the momentum swung towards England.The out of form Kevin Pietersen scored a double hundred after being troubled by Zaheer Khan for most of the first day.England posted a mammoth total of 474/8 declare and India succumbing to the speed and swing of england bowlers for 286,just avoiding the follow-on because of the efforts of the Mr Dependable century(his first in the mecca of cricket).While indian bowlers did come back strongly to reduce england to 6-107,England found an heroes in Prior and Broad to post a target of 458.India ended the day at 80-1 with Dravid and Laxman at the crease and Rain predicted for the 5th day ,India would have had hopes of escape similar to the one 4 years ago when dhoni and sreeshanth batted out and bad light stopping play .India were 142-4 at lunch ,with Tendulkar and raina in crease and escape route still present.Tendulkar fell soon after lunch and his ambitions of his first century at Lords just vanished.India survived till Tea session with five wickets in hand but once dhoni fell soon after Tea,Raina was left to fight alongside the tailenders who were not able to handle the swing and India lost by 196 Runs.

With India having a track record of bouncing back from the series 1-0 down,the fans did not lose hope.And the hopes were heightened when india bundled out england for 221 and were imposing position at 267-4 on day 2 post tea session.But everytjing changed when england took the new ball and india lost theiir next 6 wickets for 20 runs and England got the much needed boost and they never looked back .They savaged the indian bowling ,and posted a huge total of 544 on board leaving India a gargantuan task of chasing 458 in fourth innings.The pitch which had behaved like a flat track when England batted ,started to do all the tricks what English bowlers aimed at the Indians and except for Tendulkar's 56,India did not have any nerves to put up a fight were bowled out for 158 runs by the end of the days play.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Mankatha - Tamil movie review

Well, I had to and I wanted to write about this movie. With some many comments, both extremely positive and utterly negative by people in social networking sites, I wanted to share mine as well but on a bigger platform - which is this... my blog :)

Onto the movie, it was today that I caught up with the movie and here is what I noted of the two and a half hours movie that entertained me to a great extent today.

According to Wikipedia, Director Venkat Prabhu chose to direct one of his three scripts as his next movie after a not so great Goa. Ajith had a keen interest to portray something on the lines of the "Joker" character in Dark Knight. Yes, we all know how vicious Heath Ledger was on screen, playing Joker. So, Mankatha (its a traditional game of cards in India) had one such role with dark characterization and so, the movie happened with Ajith and the usual gang of boys with Venkat Prabhu(with two new members)... I only know that people say "உள்ளே" (Inside), "வெளியே"(Outside) while playing that game. If you are interested, you can learn how Mankatha the card game is played.

So here goes MY review of the movie.

[caption id="attachment_430" align="aligncenter" width="258" caption="Mankatha the film"]Mankatha the film[/caption]

Onto the story-line, the movie starts with "Thala" Ajith Kumar as a police officer(Vinayak), on a fabulous introduction scene, who is then suspended from work for 6 months; he then plans to pull out the biggest heist of a very huge amount of illegal betting money just before the final match of the IPL. He actually derives a plan along with four guys who had their own heist plan. Vinayak, along with the four guys, are they successful in the heist and  'Action King' Arjun as the sincere police anti-betting head(Pritviraj) to nab the illegal betting guys, is he successful in chasing these guys before they rob the money, forms the core story. There was never a scope for performance for three ladies in the movie, no scope for mentioning here as well. Lakshmi Rai did some justice to her bad girl character(Sona). The final twist in the movie was as expected but it was pictured very well. Special mention about Subbu who did a good job as the other police officer(Kamal Ekambaram) with Arjun.

Ajith, Ajith and more Ajith. It is Ajith all the way. You'l agree with me after you watch the movie. Yes, it sure is his 50th film and he has portrayed the Anti-hero character with much elan. The Bloopers at the credits were too good. Don't miss them!

Yuvan Shankar Raja needs a special mention for all his work on the Background music and the re-recording. Excellence in choice of instruments/music at the right time and at the right frame. I was never tired of the theme music.

There were plenty of let-downs -  in terms of a not so strong script, an utterly unwarranted comical geek!!, most action scenes hugely (or totally?) inspired from Hollywood, a few lagging scenes in the movie, songs just for the sake except 'Vilayaadu Mankatha' and 'Machi Open the Bottle'.

Mankatha, sometimes உள்ளே and sometimes வெளியே. The final few scenes of the movie did enthrall everyone at the theatre. In a nutshell, it wasn't that much of an edge of the seat game, but it was very well played towards the end and a deserved victory.

I would give the movie a rating of 7.05 out of 10. How much would you?!