Ravanan

Ravanan – Mani Ratnam’s latest super hit. A movie with great expectations, waited for a long time. After a long gap Mani has made a tamil movie. This time instead of dubbing he made the movie for Hindi and Tamil audiences. Ravan for hindi and Ravanan for Tamil.

Ravanan, staring Vikram, Aishwarya Rai, Prithviraj in the lead role released on June 18th. Before anything about the movie a great applause for V.Manikandan and Santosh Siva for their excellent cinematography, nice camera shots, locations that perfectly matched the scenes and their emotions.

Veera, full name is Veerasamy (Vikram) , who resemble the epic ravanan, not in look but in activities. Veera’s lanka is a small village near Tirunelveli, he rules the village, many of the people loves and respect him and others fears him, neither government nor police can do anything against Veera. How powerful Veera is shown nicely by the director at the beginning of the movie where Veera take a jump from a cliff very high into the water at the same time his fellow members attacks and kills the police men and set their vehicles on fire. Always

As movie starts Veera kidnaps Raagni (Aishwarya Rai) and takes her to a nearby mountain surrounded with thick dense forest. Raagni is wife of Dev Prakash (Prithviraj) who is a police officer – encounter specialist , who has been in this case of finding and killing Veera. Veera with his brothers Singarasan (Prabhu) and Sakkarai (Munna), leads the team of people who do anything for them in return even their lives. Now Dev with this force started for hunting Veera in the forest with the help of the forest guard played by Karthick. Meantime Veera tries to frighten Raagni in different ways but she appears to be so bold, once even she jump from the mountain telling Veera that he can’t kill her, by seeing all these a sympathy started in the mind of Veera which later turned to be a love towards her, but for Raagni, Veera is a cruel guy. She has to face lot of painful situations but her belief was that Dev will come to save her. Meantime Veera started catching some of the officers who supported Dev and either killed or heavily injured. Till the first half the movie which goes little slower and keeps suspense why Veera kidnapped Raagni. In the second half Veera relieves the secret to Raagni that in the interest of catching Veera, Dev once planned an operation to attack him during the marriage function of his younger sister Vennila (Priyamani), Dev shot Veera in his neck and his fellow men took him for safety. To get back Veera, Hemanth Kumar (the officer in charge under Dev) took Vennila to police station and the police men their raped her. Next day she committed suicide. This was the reason why Veera want to take revenge against Dev so he kidnapped Raagni but by seeing her courage he couldn’t kill her instead started loving her. After knowing the story behind the revenge Raagni started having a soft feeling against Veera. Meantime Dev killed his younger brother Sakarai which led to an open fight between Veera and Dev, rest forms the move, will Dev be successful in getting back his wife Raagni, will Raagni be able to go back with Dev.

Though the movie is too slow the climax turns to be perfect. This time Mani Ratnam lacks the story line. And some of scenes are not so clear, like there should be little more scenes to make Veera feels a love towards Raagni (director explained it through the lyrics of the background song), the reason for the revenge turns to be very common applied in many of the movies repeatedly. Another poor thing about the movie is the makeup. While making a movie like this director should have much consider the costume and makeup. Throughout the movie Aishwarya appears to be fresh with little blood stains in face. She was there in forest for 14 days without proper food and shelter, walking always with Veera in thick forest but still so fresh looking. The director was too busy in handling the movie in both the languages simultaneously he missed out these types of fine things. Regarding acting Vikram did a good job but has expected more from him, Aishwaya Rai had did her role well, Prithviraj has much less scenes to do but did well, lot of star casting but they have very few to act like Prabhu, Karthick (nice as funny forest gaurd), Priyamani, and others.

The music score by A.R.Rahman is good and a highlight for the movie.

Movie written by Mani Ratnam and Suhasini, produced by Mani Ratnam itself under the banner of Madras Talkies and released all over the world by Reliance Big Pictures.

Watch Ravanan in theatres only since the highlight is the cinematography, sound and music.

Movie is watchable