Krishanu Bhattacharjee A stark departure from the run of the mill gravity defying stunts, ping pong color costume, queer hand, leg, body gesture by central characters in slow motion, Visaaranai is a bold, realistic, gripping ddrama on police brutality and corruption. If you are a great admirer of Santosh Sivan and Adoor Gopalakrishnan, you will miss that lyrical romanticism in frames, in storytelling and in treatment. Instead what the director's command over the treatment overpowers you and transports you to a the world of four hapless Tamil daily-wage earning laborers who have made the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh their home. Four time national award winning director Vetri Maaran hits it hard with realm of realism, there are gruesome violent scenes which border around torture p**n shows you violence at its harshest best. Tight gripping story, excellent acting, good screenplay make it great to watch, but I am not confident about its Oscar success (though every year I hope India gets a best foreign movie award). May be its contemporaries made the movie look so good. I liked the movie but I am not going gaga over it. I hope Visaaranai inspires more directors and technicians and we get to see more such meaningful movies in future.

Reno Rangan Another sensational movie from Dhanush K. Raja, the producer of 'The Crow's Egg' that I recently reviewed in this site. This time he joined the hands with the writer, director who bought him a best actor award at the Indian Academy Award for the movie 'Playground'. The film was based on the novel 'Lock Up' that loosely inspired by the experiences of the author who is an autorickshaw driver now.I already mentioned that Indian cinema is waking up, knocking the doors of the international film critics, films festivals and film buffs. Thanks to the young generation in the film industry, looking for the international market expansion. It's time for you to check it out some of the Indian parallel cinemas, not the masala films. If you think you're totally in an unfamiliar territory, then it will be good to you start with this one.India is like the European Union, where each nation speaks a different language and its own culture, likewise each Indian state has a different language and culture. That's why it might be called the Indian subcontinent. This story begins when three Tamil labourers who are illegally living in a city park to save rent money from the work in the neighbor state Andhra, will be taken to the police custody without letting know them the reason. The rest of the film exposes the law enforcement agency's brutality on these young innocent men to force to accept a crime that is not committed by them which is a violation of human rights."The influence is more important than skill when it comes to promotions."The film has two phases and they were not focused on any particular characters. It is a couple of different events based flick that connected to each other by the characters. But everything is about corruption in the police force and common people who affected by that. Kind of unpredictable scenes with the decent twists. The first half takes place in Andhra Pradesh with the backdrop of some robbery case and then in the next half it moves to Tamil Nadu with once again a cop tale, but different scenario.Welcome to the Indian police's torture chamber. The dark side of the Indian police force. Not all about the bad cops, but also involves those honest ones caught between dishonest ones from the higher power. There was a small romance plot in the opening, later it vanished when entire story focus shifted to police interrogation. The pace had many up and down, that helped to turn things around like transforming from one state of condition to another.This theme was exactly opposite to the old saying 'lightning never strikes the same place twice'. You can call it a bad luck, but for some people like the youngsters from this movie who came from the poor families from the rural without proper education, it is a matter of life and death and injustice. I won't be surprised if international remake are made. It won this year's Indian Academy Awards in the three categories including the supporting actor which was one of the important cop roles. So I won't be surprised either if it was picked to represent India for the 2017 Oscars.This is a Kollywood film, but watching it feels like a some dark tone Korean crime-drama- thriller. I have seen some of Indian cop films, but so far this one was the best when it comes to the realism yet not depicted them in a good way. I highly recommend it, but don't expect a genuine screenplay with a grand twist. It makes you feel how the innocence was taken away from the poor by the people with power, really heartbreaking.9/10

koushikrishnan There comes a movie like Whiplash once in a while where there is lot of action primarily due to intensity of performances and absorbing screenplay. Then there are movies like Haider where the movie atmosphere is dense and disturbing that you are left cold and horrified at the very end. Visaranai is a movie that has successfully blended both these aspects in order to present a practical, rational view of the system that is part of our livelihood. I cannot remember the last time I watched such an intense, nerve chilling, baffling movie in Thamizh.As I have now noticed, Vetrimaran's films have two different halves but which are part of the same story. In Polladhavan, we see the happy, everyday youth Dhanush living a jolly good life in the first half while in the second, things take a sudden turn and he gets exposed to a world of ruthless criminals. In Aadukalam, we see Dhanush's involvement in the rivalry between 2 rival gangs in the first half, while in the latter we turn audience to how one man's greed changes his surrounding people's lives. Similarly in Visaranai, as the title suggests we are presented with 2 separate interrogations with different scenarios in both halves of the movie. The movie attempts at one thing as beautifully explained by Kishore in one scene - The system is the boss and we are just pawns playing a game in it. The powerful always prey on the powerless and there is no way that one who has been nabbed in the web escape out from it. This is explained through layers of tightly scripted scenes with lots of crude violence, not to a forced extent of skipping the movie but watching it as if the horror where happening in front of your eyes. Few minutes into the movie the story starts unraveling and you start feeling a slight chilling fear which later keeps intensifying exponentially until the very end where you are left distraught. The range of emotions portrayed by the variety of villains torturing the innocents affect you up to a level that you start trembling as if watching a horror movie. Off late we have been seeing great improvements in movies like Thani Oruvan where a lone hero fights corrupt, antisocial elements in the society and this one breaks all those clichés to state a point that the system cannot be won over. I was particularly reminded of the Brazilian film duology 'Tropa De Elite' where the story ends with an unstated "moral" that criminals, politicians and police are of the same circle and you end up on the losing side if you mess with them.Performance wise, Dinesh continues with an impressive tough role which might prove as a highlight in his career. I somehow feel convinced that Samuthirakani must be considered the real protagonist as his role portrays how a honest person becomes prey to the system and is left torn without options at the crux. The music, camera and editing cuts add more intense chill to the atmosphere. Special mention to Dhanush for continuing to surprise us by producing such top class movies. It is highly unlikely that any other Thamizh movie can beat the class of this in 2016!Vetrimaran sir, you are not a director now but a visionary. This is not a movie but a well learned and constructed, flawless piece of art about the society. Feeling proud of you and the growth in your class of movies. Take some more national and international awards! I would have been glad if I could rate 12/10 for this movie!

Sathesh S The movie revolves around four youths who went out of their homes to a foreign place for working, but what it takes in it's course of orbit is pretty heavy. It takes the entire system that's been there for decades in a country and more to it is there is no hiding from showing how flawed it is. Having such high intensity in subject, there is nothing less that you can expect visually! The core cast has defined nothing but the definition for reality on screen. Their hard work is visible in every frame. Introducing a pair and a love bud to the lead wasn't really needed, if it was for making the climax more powerful then I feel the effect was meager. The BGM by GV is very subtle to grasp during the watch(First time at least). But it helped in a great way to reduce the intensity, without which it could be intense a few folds more. This movie will stay with you! This movie will affect you! This movie will make you think about the entire system! This movie can make you get obsessed !So I would say to be prepared for all of it before you decide to watch it.