Unbearably loud, horrendously tacky and incomprehensibly silly is how I would describe Raavan in short. But if short doesn’t do for you, read on…
Unbearably Loud: Right from the first scene, the sound or rather noise of beating drums starts getting to you. And then, loud is not only about the noise, the movie is even loud in its appearance, ABHISHEK’S (BEERA’S) MADMAN EXPRESSIONS, AISHWARYA’S (RAGINI’S) SCREECHING, VIKRAM’S (DEV’S) NATHULAL MOUSTACHE, almost everything in the movie SCREAMS at you. The blaring continues right through to the end, it isn’t reserved for some special scenes. It is just out and out blaring from start to finish. There isn’t a moment of respite, not a moment. There’s a slight hint of peace in a flashback scene between Ragini and Dev but even that is edited in 5 second parts regularly coming back to the present to include the unbearable noise.
Horrendously Tacky: Santosh Sivan, for one, known for his ability to cover tremendous landscapes (remember Roja) seems to have just one task: Forget about everything else, focus on the faces. The cinematography suffers from an overdose of close shots, hand held unstable shots (which especially feels unbearable in action scenes), and lots and LOTS OF RAIN. He has just worked on the entire film without a wide lens. In every scene, the FACE occupies 70% of the screen. Imagine 3 hours of in your face Abhishek who overdoes his long face and bottom lip pout and Aishwarya who overdoes her blue eyes and confused expression with loud drums beating in the background and again… a lot of rain. There isn’t a single wide lens shot that captures the natural landscape coz. Mani Ratnam just doesn’t want to waver from the first family, or more specifically, their faces.
Incomprehensibly Silly: There isn’t a hint of a story in the movie. If you let go the overdone references to Ramayana, it is just Mani Ratnam’s pretentious version of Road – Remember that movie where a madman (Manoj Bajpai) kidnaps Antara Mali and Vivek Oberoi follows them to get her back; Exactly the same – As silly and as tacky as RGV’s Road. Just to align it to the Ramayana, there’s a monkey aping Govinda (Sanjeevani), and the unnecessary references to the characters as Raavan and the lie detector test that Dev asks Ragini to take etc. At least Road didn’t pretend to be serious or an epic and in the process provided a few laughs. What is disappointing is that at least with Mani Ratnam you do not expect absurdity; I still don’t understand why was Ragini trying to seduce Beera. The way she looked at him, supposedly angrily, was actually more like seduction. Dev’s ploy to trick Ragini in going back to Beera is… retarded. In the climax, an entire special force fires at Beera while Ragini sits below on her knees unharmed by a single bullet. On top of that, Dev is standing in front of the force while they merrily fire at Beera, from behind him while he’s untouched as well. And what was Govinda doing in the movie? He doesn’t have a role; other than act as another sorry point of alliance to the Ramayana by his tree jumping antics.
There are bad movies but therein, you can find some respite, some moment that you can speak about or at least a rare fleeting glimpse of what could’ve been a good scene. But Raavan is entirely incongruous right from the start to the end titles.
Okie .. the short review said everything;) 😉
Nice header 🙂 So many of them together .. some family function I suppose 😛
me: he he… family function 😛
Lol at family function 😀 😀
First of all thanks for saving us some hard earned dollars which we might have spent in some theater watching this crap in case we didn’t find a camping ground
me: Send me some of those dollars
After reading your review many questions have been raised in my hyper brain 🙄 Is the Bachchan family planning to contest for a major election? 😯 I mean, if this movie is not a modern Ramayan, why the hints that Ash is Sita, Abhi Ravan yada yada? God if that blue eyed, plastic smile Ash ever stands up on a podium and asks for a vote, I promise I will blog Anti-Ash, Anti-Bachchans for the rest of my life…Satyam…satyam..satyam (please insert Beera music doubly amplified here)
me: So you aren’t already anti-ash, anti-bachchans? 😛
I think Mani Ratnam was made to shoot this one at gun point…sobs!!
Ps: Your header reminds me of the early morning scenes you get to watch from the train, people reliving themselves on the tracks
me: lol… When did you catch the Vimmu fever? 😛 (Don’t fret over my :P, that’s the only smiley I know)
ROFL @ your interpretation… ‘morning ablutions’ indeed!!!
I was planning to watch this movie!!! So Rajniti was about Mahabharat and Ravan was about Ramayana… I would have thought these two ideas can never fail in India!!
me: Maybe your blogs have made the difference 😉
Have you seen ‘Sita sings the blues’?
me: Nope. Is it good?
If my blog made a difference, we will see more movies like ‘Sita sings the blues’ 🙂
I second IHM… if blog can makes a difference we should many of those… I think Sita sings the blues should be a mandatory watch for every young indian… its brilliant
me: I think I have to watch it now
I heard similar reactions about Raavana. Thanks for the review. It saved my money 😀
me: send me some of that money
I havent read ur review,i just closed my eyes…
Im goin for the movie tmrw,Will comment once i come back!
me: You were warned, but you choose to close your eyes!
Great! Another movie, I don’t need to worry about watching 🙂 Seriously, what do people think when they make movies like this! I mean, we expect more from people like Mani Ratnam..
me: Seriously, I loved Yuva and Guru. I thought, this one would be similar
I loved Yuva too. Even Guru wasnt bad.
Sheesh that bad huh……ok then we’ll change plans and go for Karate Kid 😀
me: Should be much better!
I think Mani Ratnam is going overboard now a days.
me: And that is sad indeed.
No I wont read this review… till I see the movie… I have to see it atleast for the locations… !!!
me: What locations, the only two locations that the movie focuses on are Abhi and Aish’s face!
sigh,… !! Naheee… !!! I dont konw why but I so wanted the movie to be a hit.. ! 😦
I still havent seen it and read the review finally and your review deflates me totally ! 😦
me: No No Dhirubai, you should see it once… Just to see how bad can it be 🙂
Totally agree…
me: Welcome!
Heard mixed reviews about this movie, but I think I will go by what you have said. Call me ‘anti-Bach-family’ but I can’t stand the sight of any of them, so in a weird way, I am quite thrilled that this movie flopped. I hope Mani Ratnam moves on beyond Ash and gets some really good actress for his next film!!
me: he he.. ‘really good’ actress? it’ll be great even if he at least gets an actress.
Your header pix blow me away…the water one & this one, i wish i had captured them!! Bellísima!
me: Thanks 🙂
Gosh you spoiled it for me, Rakesh..I was so not expecting to read this..I was really hoping it would be a good movie you know!!
I read the whole review out to R and now he has wide grin on his face for being saved from my constant pestering to take me to the movie 😀
Thanks for making it easy for me, nonetheless. I can now safely wait for the DVD to be out. I hope the tamil version is good tho..I’m a huge fan of Vikram 🙂
me: None of the versions will work Deeps. Coz. no movie can work without a story…
And thats a beautiful header!! Where is this??
me: Taksim Square, Istanbul
And we was thinking of putting the kiddo to sleep, quickly run to the nearest movie hall, see the movie and rush back before he wakes up for this first mid night feed….
Saved me the hassle…
me: And the Money! Recharge my phone now 🙂
Watched it on saturday itself !! Man, this was torture in the name of entertainment !
The Tamil version, I heard is a lot better than Hindi, mainly because of the dialogues and also because of the cast. I guess, the former could be because Mani thinks and writes his stories in Tamil. No comments about the latter; donno why he still casts Abhi and Ash in his movies. Probably, the Bachchans have an ‘MMS’ of Mani and are blackmailing him 😀 😀 😀
me: he he, MMS of Mani? That gets some weird thoughts into my mind 😛 But I don’t think how can the Tamil version be any different in absence of a story
MMS? 😆 now there’s a thought!
I had a feeling this would be a disaster. Glad to know that I was right in skipping it. And I believe that the Tamil version is marginally better, if at all…..
Loud, tacky, silly. Just another Indian film. 🙂
What did you think of Shutter Island?
Cheers,
Quirky Indian
me: he he, yeah – Indian film! But I thought Mani Ratnam didn’t make Indian films and got duped.
Shutter Island is FANTASTIC. Leonardo delivers yet another amazing performance. He is such an amazing actor – Just thinking of the most awesome movies i’ve seen – Aviator, Blood Diamond, Body of Lies, he features in most of them.
u know N is very keen to watch it and I had been fearing this is what will the movie come out to be…
I am totally collecting all the horrible reviews which are there over the blogs and giving it to him, hoping he will give up the idea
me: You mean, he hasn’t yet given up on the idea 🙂
I would call it Silly, Ugly and Nakli… (like I had reviewed U, Me Aur Hum with that phrase)…
Bachchan’s are big time show-offs and their ma-pa-cha-ra-ta-la shenanigans to each other is a put off just like the movie.
Come on, I liked Road…. Especially Babu (Bajpayee).
me: Vee is back! Yeah, Road was a lot better I guess
I waiting for your review!! 😀
Loved the way your irritation with the movie has come thru so nicely!!! 😉
Thank you for the review! Won’t be watching it !
me: And send me some of the money you saved 😛
Well your reviews pretty much say it like it is. So no not watching it. Not that I have any time for it (or anyone willing to accompany me for ‘all the rubbish’ for that matter 😦 )
You are damn good at reviewing movies. You know that right?:)
PS:- the songs are catchy though I cant make out what they actually mean 😛
me: that’s at times, a typical Rehman for you, no? he he…
You won!!
im back & well…er..
That ‘lie detector test’ ruined the whole movie for me man!
😦
me: You mean till that time you were enjoying it???
Doesn’t look like we have any new, nice movies to watch now 😦
me: Yeah.
Oye, you’ve been tagged..better hop over to pick it up else consider yourself cursed with life long supply of pink shirts, creams, perfumes and handbags 😀
me: I love pink shirts, should I give you my address? 😛 Will surely take up the tag. Have been tagged by Dhirubhai and Masood as well and have been threatened by IHM (indirectly) 😉
You are tagged
me: I know, this is my third!
I couldn’t have seen so much Abhishek bachan 🙂
Anyways I saw the tamil version which was much much better …
First time here and nice review of the hindi version which I too thought was unnecessarily loud… 🙂
me: Welcome Shilpa! You saw both the versions! Wow
True, we were deciding between Rajneeti (which somebody told me was Mahabharat) and Raavan(which I had no clue ..was Ramayan) and was it BAD!!!!.I was totally shocked to see that it was directed by ManiRatnam….
Actually Rajneeti was quite good, saw it the next day…
me: I thought Rajneeti was fine only till the time Ranbir was slapped. After that, it was mindless assassinations, one after the other.
The poster kinda freaked me out already 🙂
Hows u Rakesh? Back for a day or 2…hehe..hope all is well with ya.
TC
Keshi.
me: Hey Keshi, yeah everything’s good! Only for a day or 2?
very creative. i like ur post piliz visit my bangala coomunity http://community.uraadhura.com enjoy ur self “Banglar dheu laguk prane”