Two days - two Tamil movies

It was Friday evening and yet another weekend at Mumbai was staring at me. My typical weekend would be rather lazy and boring. Get up by 10 am or so (purely coz one is hungry) have something to munch...watch TV and do some work on the laptop go out for lunch and dinner and more of TV & laptop.

This weekend also started no different. While watching TV, its a zapping exercise till you find something worthwhile to watch. On Saturday, around afternoon I suddenly realised that its been long since I watched a good Tamil movie. Given I only get to watch Sun TV, I tuned in. One of the channels with highest programme promos, I quickly caught 2 of them talking about movies being aired over the weekend - Lee on Saturday and Perazhagan on Sunday.

Half an hour later got down to watching Lee. Dont be surprised with the name. Its a story of an individual (with a group of friends around) who wants to succeed in football. Starring Sibiraj (son of Satyaraj, for all those Tamil movie fans), it showcases the struggle of a group of college students who want to make it big in football, the politics, the sacrifices and finally the revenge.

A simple no nonsense storyline and some good acting coupled with interesting camera work made it an interesting watch. Once the movie was over life was back to the weekend routine.

On Sunday, it was another interesting movie - Perazhagan. A movie with double roles for both Surya & Jothika. One (Chinna) is a hunchback village guy trying to get married who comes across a blind innocent girl while the other is a college rogue in love with an Inspector's daughter. Again simple storyline, good acting supported by great comic scenes thanks to Vivek the movie is a complete package. Its story always keeps moving and mostly in unexpected directions and has a great ending.

In all got to watch two good Tamil movies after a long time. And had a better weekend...

FLYBOYS

It was Saturday evening and everything till now went as all other weekends...Lazy morning...lot of TV and a bit of laptop for company. Motivated myself to get out of bed to go out for a quick lunch. And then back to some more of TV and laptop.

It was about 6 or so in the evening and I was zapping channels when a shot of a World War I plane flying over scenic countryside caught my attention. The channel was Star Movies. Thinking it might be Aviator, the movie I watched on. There came a commercial break and I came to know the name of the movie - Flyboys. With nothing much to watch on the sports front, I continued watching the movie. And it turned out to be a great experience.

Flyboys is a 2006 drama film set during World War I, starring James Franco (Tobby Mcguire's friend in Spiderman series), Martin Henderson (of Pride & Prejudice fame) and Jean Reno, an amazing actor who has played some great roles over all these years. Flyboys is a story of young Americans who go to France for different reasons, enlist them as pilots, volunteering to serve the French Air Force against the Central powers. During their training, the film mainly deals with the struggles each pilot has with the demanding flying; later, the focus shifts to the aerial dogfights that dominate the front line missions.

What kept me interested and later rivetted to the TV was the entire plot - the aerial sorties and finally the dogfights. The film through the setting also talks about camaradrie, racial prejudice, love, passion and finally revenge. Franco has played the role of an ace pilot and later that of a leader exceptionally well. And Jean Reno as the commander...as always a class act. The dogfights, shot amazingly from almost all angles were pretty interesting and pushing the adrenalin levels up...let it be the one on one, the sorties, the bombing of enemy depot or taking off the Zepplin. The killing of the ace enemy pilot using a pistol suddenly reminded me of Rajnikanth movie though!!!

When I did a search on Wikipedia, there were a lot of historical lapses that were pointed out but, overall it was a great movie and really worth watching. And then I was really not looking at it from education perspective. For that I should be watching National Geographic or The History Channel. Definitely recommended for a one time watch. And the DVD will definitely be part of my war movies collection...