CHEKKA CHIVANTHA VAANAM MOVIE REVIEW

27/09/2018

07/CR/Tamil/UA

Chekka Chivantha Vaanam (translation: Crimson Red Sky) is a 2018 Tamil action gangster film directed by Mani Ratnam and written by Siva Ananth and the director himself. The movie had an ensemble cast including Aravind Swamy, STR, Arun Vijay, Vijay Sethupathy, Prakash Raj, Jyotika and Aishwarya Rajesh. The music and cinematography is done by A R Rahman and Santosh Sivan respectively.

Plot:

Senapathy (Prakash Raj), a big well-known gangster in Tamilnadu, and his wife (Jayasudha) gets attacked. This message soon receives to their three sons, Varadan (Aravind Swamy) in Chennai, Thyagu (Arun Vijay) in Dubai and Ethi (STR) in Serbia. Varadan asks help from his friend, SI Rasool Ebrahim (Vijay Sethupathy) to find out the who's behind this attack. 

Watch the Official Trailer:

Why Should you Watch this film?

* A Mani Ratnam Film. The tagline itself is enough. (fan-boy)

‌* An interesting multi-starrer film with efficient actors like Aravind Swamy, Vijay Sethupathy, Arun Vijay and Vijay Sethupathy.

‌* The evergreen combo of Mani Ratnam - A R Rahman - Santosh Sivan after the  bilingual Tamil-Hindi film Raavan/Raavanan (2010). (Their previous best were Roja, Iruvar, Dil Se and Raavan/Raavanan)

+ves and - ves:

+ Lead actors
+ Direction
+ Characterisation and Dialogues
+ DoP and Editing
+ Music

- Story and Screenplay (a bit)

First Look Poster:

Performances:

* Aravind Swamy as a hot-headed, tempered person Varadan did a great job. Usually when Aravind Swamy acts in a Mani Ratnam movie, his performance would be somehow exploited by Mani Ratnam, even just a scene. Watch Thalapathy, Bombay or Roja to watch his capacity of acting.

* STR as Ethi did a good performance and the role seemed like tailored for him. This movie is his major comeback after his few recent movies which were average and poor ones. His cool uber avatar and the dialogue delivery gave him a good attitude to his character.

* Arun Vijay as Thyagu did good performance as he portrayed different shade of his character nicely. His subtleness, and pre-planned crook kind of attitude was shown nicely.

* Vijay Sethupathy as Rasool did an commendable performance. His dialogue delivery, one-liner jokes, and attitude as a police officer is good.

* Prakash Raj as Senapathy had an impact in his role. His performance was much kind of subtle but nothing much to do.

* Among the performances of female roles, only Jyotika as Chitra was standout. She did a good job of portraying Varadan's wife who supports him throughout. 

Rest of the actors did justice to their roles.

Watch the Second Trailer:

Technical Aspects:

* Directed by Mani Ratnam. He's back in action. His last directorial flick, Kaatru Veliyidai backfired but now he just came back like a pheonix bird in this movie. This is not his best but could appreciate him for directing with a proper no-nonsense movie with four stars giving them equal space to perform. He has concentrated each and every detail of tbis movie and made this movie in a good cinematic approach. The movie was written by the director himself and Siva Ananth did a good job. The movie doesn't offer any big twists or turns but it gives good impact for the characters and their characterisation. The dialogues were pretty good and convincing once, for the main characters.

* DoP by Santosh Sivan did a great job. His frames were good and refreshing and was so suitable for the script especially for the fight scenes. Editing by A. Sreekar Prasad did apt cuts for the movie.

* Music by A R Rahman was good. Among from the songs he composed, 'Mazhai Kuruvi', 'Bhoomi Bhoomi', and 'Sevandh Pochu Nenju' stands out. The background score done by Qutub-E-Kripa (his students) and himself was perfectly synced throughout the movie.

* Other technical departments like production designing, sound effects and designing, visual effects and digital intermediate were good.

Final Verdict: Chekka Chivantha Vaanam is an emotional roller-coaster of a gangster family, Senapathy's family and how each child of Senapathy is responsible for their deeds they have done that is irreversible.

@avmoviebuff Rating: 3.5/5