Sunday, May 30, 2004

Yuva!

Saw Yuva the other day...interesting coincidence, what with having written a
blog of how the young should inherit this country some days ago.
The short reaction, worth a dekko.
The long one:
Seen movies of this variety before, in South films. Nonetheless there was a
lot which is saying quite a lot for these days. According me it had quite
realistic story(in a filmi andaaz of course). And it had great
action...really great fight scenes especially towards the end("Vikram"
Dharam is the fight director, I think). Disclaimer: the violence does get a
wee bit too realistic at times. My wife hated it, so if you are squeamish
thing again.
However I like this movie for a completely different reason. We have ACTORS
in this movie. I kid you not!. Ajay Devgan has proved himself in this genre
from some time, especially with his Company and GanagaJal acts. So you would
expect a great performance from him and he delivers. Ditto for Abhishek. He
delivers, and how!!! If you want only two reasons for watching this movie,
they are Ajay and Abhishek. And Rani, with another down to earth performance
is the third!!!
And the greatest star of the movie is Mani Rathnam, the way he has used
Vivek Oberoi, Kareena Kapoor and Esha Deol beyond their potential. At least
Vivek has some potential so not a big challenge there. However the same
cannot be said about the other two, and not their mistake really. Both
Kareena and Esha depend on a good director to guide them if they want to
make an impact beyond pretty face and pretty smile. In this movie Kareena
manages not to overact and Esha actually manages to act.
Again being a Mani Ratnam movie, all the other aspects were well done, like
music, locales and cinematography. Though I must point that the blair witchy
camera mode was a wee bit overused, especially in songs.

Any ways all in all a thumbs-up to the movie. Immensely watchable as I
caught the 11:00pm show and did not sleep through the show :)Pompously I
give it 3.5 stars ;).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Finally saw Yuva. Must say its a pretty decent movie from Mani Ratnam. Mere technical mastery, as with a lot of prev efforts, is only going to bring in film-students.

I have a couple of Bengali friends who i watched the movie with, and i was impressed along with them at the authentic nature and acting out of Om Puri's character. I don't know if Ajay Devgan did anything too different, nor Vivek from earlier efforts. But Abhishek did put in a risky performance that come off very well. Rani impressed in every scene she was in, and Kareena seemed natural. I dont know much about Esha - she seemed restrained and agreeable. The movie had an almost RGV hangover, notice the constant rain and the mood. Mani shoots his songs much better than RGV though. Yuva ended on a rather hopeful note - much closer to a "pipe dream being realized approach". I doubt if RGV would have settled for such a simple ending.
So in the end - a commendable risky effort by Mani with a little bit of a sell-out at the end. Very entertaining nonetheless.
-sarat.