Movie Review: Veerappan
By Shilpa Jamkhandikar and
(Any opinions expressed here are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters)
Handout photo of "Veerappan"
Ram Gopal Varma, whose skill sets as a director have plummeted drastically in the last few years, falls further into the abyss by bringing together a bunch of bad actors in "Veerappan" and egging them on towards even more mediocrity.
The film brings the minuscule acting talents of Sachiin Joshi and Lisa Ray to the table, where Varma adds his trademark loud decibel levels and wobbly camera to make a two hour-film that makes a lot of noise but says very little.
The budget cuts seem to have been severe in Varma's first Hindi film in three years. His extras look like they belong to an 80s bandit film, as do the sets. The CGI in the film is Alif-Laila level, and Varma seems to have wasted no time or money putting together a coherent script for the film, a Hindi remake of his Kannada movie "Killing Veerappan".
Based on events leading up to the death of sandalwood smuggler Veerappan who operated from the forests of South India, Varma manages to make this at best a one-dimensional tale about a police officer and his arch enemy. Joshi plays a brooding officer who makes it his life's mission to hunt down Veerappan after the bandit brutally kills a fellow officer. He gets help from Priya (Lisa Ray), the wife of his dead colleague, who acts as a spy to extract information about the smuggler's whereabouts.
Unfortunately, Ray looks like she is in a B-grade horror film for all the believability she brings to her role. She darts furtive looks or stands in a catatonic state for most of her screen time, and is responsible for most of the unintentional humour in the film. Joshi is not far behind in this department, and Sandeep Bhardwaj as the reed-thin, mustachioed Veerappan is reduced to a caricature of the popular folklore surrounding the real man.
In 2000, Varma made a film whose villain was a bandit obviously inspired by Veerappan. At the time, "Jungle" wasn't considered one of his better films, but after watching this latest addition to Varma's filmography, you might be filled with an inexplicable longing for Fardeen Khan, Urmila Matondkar and Sushant Singh chasing each other in a jungle.
(Editing by David Lalmalsawma; Follow Shilpa on Twitter at @shilpajay and David at@davidlms25. This article is website-exclusive and cannot be reproduced without permission)
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6:10 am UTC
This is a lame review. A review is not just providing an outline of the story and writing your opinion on how good the movie was. Review is too focussed on bashing varma. Movie is not just about varma. Actors were bad. Ok. But how was the screenplay? Any details on where the movie lost its way. Give examples. How was the camera work? Other technical departments? A bit more feedback on sandeep bharadwaj??
Posted by Srikki | Report as abusive