Spoilers ahead…
Rarely have I heard a film’s leading man dismissed with such exquisite contempt: “Mudhugelumbu illadha oru nallavan!” (A spineless saint!) Part of the powerlessness we sense in the character – a sub-inspector named Sathya – is surely due to the ineffectiveness of the actor, a newcomer named Vettri. He’s terribly stiff. There’s no strength, no confidence. It seems to take him effort just to part his lips and say his lines. But luckily, the story plays on this very (lack of) quality. The first time we see Sathya as a grown-up, it’s the voice you notice, the meekness with which he answers a superior. One gets the feeling Vettri didn’t have to act. He just had to be.
The director, Sri Ganesh, was an assistant of Mysskin, and you can sense a similar love for formal (and yes, showy) rigour. A superbly constructed canteen scene involving a slow zoom-in/zoom-out – locating a man in this world, and then slowly isolating him through a close-up, as the others fall off the frame, then bringing them back (the shots linger just an extra beat or two) – is right out of the Mysskin playbook. As is the choreography in the scene involving four people, two of them with guns, in a locked room. As is the hat tip to Eastern cinema. The story is adapted from Akira Kurosawa’s Stray Dog.
Read the rest of the review on Film Companion, here:
Copyright ©2017 Film Companion.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Dhanda Soru
April 6, 2017
As interested as I am by this film, I can’t really understand as to why it’s releasing alongside something like “Kaatru Veliyidai”. Even with all the pre-release buzz, it’s still going to have share space with a behemoth like KV. And should KV click, I can’t really see this film doing good business, unlike “Maanagaram”.
I felt the same way about “Dora”. Why not release the film at a later date, alongside a film with lesser star-wattage? Yes, Nayanthara is a star in her own right. But wouldn’t more people have seen “Dora” had it released alogside a lesser film? To be fair though, the film does seem to have emerged as a profitable venture for its producers (if not the distributors), as opposed to “Kavan”, which has – apparently – turned out to be an unprofitable venture for its producers.
Hopefully, I’m proven wrong. And maybe, just maybe, it’ll provide decent returns for its producers and the distributors.
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Aadhy
April 6, 2017
Hey BR, the director of this movie has cited your book as one of his major references that’s helped him in honing his craft 🙂
Watch from 14:40
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MANK
April 6, 2017
The story is adapted from Akira Kurosawa’s Stray Dog
Huh , even relatively unknown Kurosawa movies aren’t safe any more 🙂
Brangan ,No mention of Aparna Balamurali’s performance. she was superb in Maheshinte prathikaram. did you like her in the film?. or is it that she doesnt have much of a role.
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Vikas Raj
April 6, 2017
Can you put the entire review at one place? It is frustrating to read half at one place and then jump onto another link.
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GODZ
April 6, 2017
Yet to see the movie. But coming back to the mention of MS Bhaskar. Finally. How many actors in Indian Cinema has the range of this amazing actor. One of the best talents in Indian Cinema. And one suggestion to BR. Award seasons are over. But Honestly their are not that many genuine awards in Indian cinema. The national awards are too boring and Flimfare are awards are too entertaining. What about BR awards? That would be really Exciting and who knows someday a place in you list might be considered more Prestigious than getting those awards…
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Kid
April 6, 2017
Aadhy: Thanks for the interview. It’s heartening to see the director talking about BR’s book. All i hope is that by the time BR ends his writing career, his influence on (Indian) cinema is more in the vein of Bazin (or Rosenbaum) than Ebert. Becoming an Ebert-like figure (in Indian context) would be a waste of BR’s extraordinary gifts as a writer.
MANK: Haha! Though you might recall Inkaar, the High and Low (though this one is certainly a more famous film than Stray Dog) remake Raj Sippy made with Vinod (which actually was a pretty gripping film with a terrific Amjad Khan performance. And some day, a film historian must write a thesis on how “Mungda Mungda” reconfigures the aesthetics of a Kurosawa film, LOL). Needless to say that the Hindi film only resembles High and Low in its plot, otherwise it’s not a serious remake at all.
Outside of Sholay, the best Indian “reworking” of a world cinema classic I can think of is “Oridathoru Phayalvaan”. And that is probably because Padmarajan uses the original film more as a structural device than anything else.
Which film(s) would be the considered the Indian existential thriller though? I can’t recall a single pre-2000 Hindi film which fits the bill (I think the scripts of both Shammi Kapoor’s “Mujrim” and AB’s “Bandhe Haath- which have pretty much the same plots, though the former is better- had potential for the director to mine the existential elements in story, but the films remain undercooked if potentially interesting works). I haven’t seen any such old Tamil film either). I guess we would have to look towards KG George’s cinema for the answer.
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brangan
April 6, 2017
Kid: That is too kind comment. One can only hope, but thank you.
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MANK
April 7, 2017
Kid, Bandhe Haath is a virtual remake of Ashok kumar blockbuster Kismet
Reg. reworkings of classic films, i would say Bharathan’s thazhvaram is a terrific reworking of Sergio Leone’s westerns
And dont laugh at me, but Pokkiri appears to me as a reworking of Yojimbo 🙂
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writeawordatatime
April 7, 2017
“. As is the hat tip to Eastern cinema”.
This line seeks an essay in its own. Why not just say inspired, adapted by AK’s Stray Dog. If you do explicitly write that this film takes off from an ‘Eastern film’, why this is so specific, significant, BR? Am seriously thinking of this line, the rest of the review is your usual self.
This plot and from what you have written , it reminds me of this Chinese film Missing Gun (2002/3) and less of AK’s movie.
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Anu Warrier
April 7, 2017
MANK, Bandhe Haath was not a remake of Kismet, unless you’re looking at lookalike heroes as the common plot point. In the latter, Ashok Kumar is Shekhar, the identity that Madan takes on after he leaves his home. As in, he’s the same person, he just change his name. In the former, Amitabh is a doppelganger who takes on a dead man’s identity to escape the consequences of his criminal deeds. There are actually two people who look alike. Are you sure you’re not mixing up some other film?
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Manikandan V
April 9, 2017
Brilliant Film – I feel there are two tracks running in tamil crime thriller cinema – technical thrillers with no qualms about morality ( D16 , Maanagaram) where as likes of Kutramey thandanai , 8 Thottakkal come out in open to discuss morality. Long time, film makers have yielded to theoretical argument of grey shades characters.
Infact same can be extended to bigger heros Vijay Sethupathi (Good Man slips a little making a mistake strives to correct it ) Vs Sivakarthikeyan ( Vagabond or laid waste transformation to all do gooder)
BR Sir – your views ?
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GODZ
April 11, 2017
Again problem for smaller movies..No discussions..no Threads…Their could be 2 faces to it..Either the commentators feel themselves “Hey I am responding on a Mani Ratnam movie thread..i am part of the Niche Elite Group” or the movie does not play in many theaters for the people to actually see and comment about it..I dont know a solution for the first one..But I hope that their would be more distribution channels and fair play time so more people get to see real cinema..This is a consistent problem for smaller movies..
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Kaaviyathalagani
May 1, 2017
-SPOILERS-
To add onto the Anjathey comparison, both protagonists are called Sathya (Sathyavaan there. Still) Also the cancer plot-point really took me out of Moorthy’s character graph. Somehow with the restaurant scene and what followed, his cause/motive was so skewed morally and his circumstance was so well enacted – even the way they used a possible old-age home as a point of catharsis and not the sentimental sacrifice crap that we’re used to.
Then they HAD to introduce the fuckall cancer-solution to try and make him a Walter-White figure. An earlier scene (with the gun-seller methinks) had one too many Breaking Bad posters. Appove yoschirkanum. Worsht.
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Ramchander Krishna (@ramctheatheist)
May 4, 2017
I watched 8 Thottakkal and Stray Dog back to back. The main motivation to watch Stray Dog was the curiosity to see how the same characters were handled by Kurosawa. I had a hunch Nasser’s character and the wife with an extra-marital affair would have been fleshed out much better by Kurosawa and that’s exactly how it turned out!
I felt 8 Thottakkal lacked a solid core and its making didn’t excite me either. MS Bhaskar’s monologue at the canteen was okay, I wouldn’t call it great. The lines felt like they were written by a youngster sympathising with an old man. They didn’t have depth. His guilt for having killed an innocent little girl comes only in a single line he speaks before his death. The gangsters and the police officers were all template characters. The heroine’s involvement in the plot was nil.
I have my own doubts if the director Sri Ganesh comprehended the nuances of Stray Dog. And I felt Mahendran’s emphasis on literature and observing people around us closely is pertinent. Many Tamil films off late that receive praises, including Dhuruvangal 16, fail to have anything beneath the surface. They’re shiny and hollow. They’re films made by concocting aspects of Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie and Mani Ratnam in various proportions.
I wrote in greater detail about this problem here –
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Srinivas R
May 4, 2017
@Ramchander – brilliant write up, loved every bit of it. Just curious, is writing about cinema a part of your job or a hobby?
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Jambulingam
May 4, 2017
Ramchander, good writeup. However I found that Rangan’s review dealt more with 8 Thottakkal than about Stray dogs. I find this a common trait among bloggers today to write about what a movie could have been, rather than what it really is about. Rangan put it correctly, ”I mean it when I say “adapted.” The similarities stop with the plot”. These are two different films. I found very little of Mani Ratnam in this film.
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praneshp
May 8, 2017
Just watched this today. That the director was an assistant to Mysskin was not even a surprise to me by the time I finished watching the movie. It even had the terribly made song that inserted at a really bad time that early Mysskin movies used to have.
What did you think about the lead pair BR? I think this was the worst hero I have seen in a long while; he is from the family producing the movie. The heroine was close competition.
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brangan
May 8, 2017
praneshp: “…ineffectiveness of the actor, a newcomer named Vettri. He’s terribly stiff. “
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doctorhari
May 9, 2017
@Ramchander – Fantastic write-up! Good cinema can be produced only when the art is of secondary importance to the artist. He needs to have lived a life first, needs to have a strong point of view towards the society and our times, a new perspective about a certain aspect of life. Only then good art will come out of him. I have often felt that the new directors of tamil cinema should stop worshipping Mani ratnams and QT’s, and start revering life itself. You have expressed the same quite nicely.
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SharathC
November 24, 2017
the payoff seriously was a killer!!
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