Movie: "Ulidavaru Kandante" (As seen by the rest)
Language: Kannada
First Things first:
1. Excellent treatment of the film - visually and musically.
Absofuckinglutely loved the Noir bits - left me begging for more. (Yes! It has Noir! I got goosebumps watching the
trailer)
MacGuffin - (not) shown brilliantly.
Groovy background score and music. Some of my favourite tracks from the album:
"Ulidavaru Kandante Theme Music" - Great instrumental track.
"Kaakig Banna" - Surreal and haunting.
"Tiger Dance(Huli Vesha)" - authentic and trippy street music.
2. Strong characters and great performance.
"Richie" is an instant favourite and has a strong screen presence.
"Balu" is pivotal to the story and has been handled very well.
"Democracy" is a kid with loads of attitude.
3. Flawless editing.
The narrative switches seamlessly between different timelines. It keeps coming back to critical parts of the story while dealing with different characters' perspectives of the same sequence of events. This is the central theme of the movie and has been executed extremely well.
4. The Plot.
For any movie to be good, especially a crime-thriller, the plot needs to be strong - and I mean Ambuja Cement Strong.
The plot for this one starts out to be highly intriguing.
Then, it grows strong and advances at a good pace.
Then, it slows down at times - dangerously bordering on becoming boring.
Then again, the plot thickens - like well-cooked rabdi.
By now, you can't resist it so you eat a spoonful of it.
Finally, it ends - with a striking poetic (in)justice.
But somewhere along the way it misses the Ambuja Strong that it promised earlier.
That leaves you with a slight sense of dissatisfaction, but also with the confusion and curiosity of an open-ended narrative that the movie-makers intended.
At the end of it all the sweetness and thickness, however, don't leave you so easily.
So you can relish it in spite of its weakness.
A deserving 8 out of 10.
Shamanth,
3rd April, 2014.
