Ugramm

Review
First of all the filming I found unsatisfactory. It is sometimes said in the theatre, that if the lighting is good, you should not notice it. I disagree, but then I have a particular interest in stage-lighting. Film-makers normally go to great lengths in lighting - when shooting outdoors, and particularly in bright sunshine, they use fill-in lighting to illuminate the shadows. In this film, they have not done so, and as a result a lot of the scenes, particularly at the beginning of the film are dark, and in interiors, there is often no lighting at all, other than from windows. This is the effect you get in "reality" TV shows, where, for example, they follow police in action in events that take place at night. In contrast, the lighting is better in the songs, and you will see the sunshine highlighting the hair, whilst the faces are well-lit. One brief example of excellent lighting is the first few seconds of the second song, the scene with Agastya and Nithya.

Secondly, The story-line is difficult to follow. Nithya (Haripriya) arrives in India from Australia, finds that she is the taget of would be assassins, and is recued and kept safe by Agastya (Srimurali), who is obviously used to fighting successfully against many attackers. It is adequately explained why she is being targeted. But then it becomes confusing, when we learn about Agastya’s past as a top gangster or rowdie. Many people are introduced in this section, making it difficult to follow, and I found the violence sickening. I eventually I came to the conclusion that it did not really matter too much who was who – they were all equally bad, including Agastya, who had murdered many people for Bala (Tilak Shekar), but who finally prevented the murder of a woman.

I will not comment about the ending, suffice it to ask whether someone as bad as Agastya was as a gangster, can reform, and become a good person, and live without any expiation for all the murders he had committed. There was a fight scene with rwhere Agastya had a bleeding injury on his forehead above the right eye, which mysteriously healed later in the scene!

With regard to the acting, everyone was superb, particularly Sri Murali as Agastya and Haripriya as Nithya, and Padmaja Rao as Agastya’s mother.

In contrast to the violence of the film, there was tenderness in songs one, two and four.

1 star.

Rating: [1 of 5 Stars!]