 Here's the story. Have a lovely lady. No? Yeah. It went pretty good. This is the intro. Here we go! Welcome back to our stupid reactions here at Hits' Home Corp. I'm Rick. And today we are joined by two very special guests that who we've done one other review with. In Padosen we have Jimmy and Dennis from the Jimmy Cage channel. Say hello. Hi. Hello everybody. And today we are reviewing a 1991 film. It's called Thalapathy. Is that how you pronounce that? Thalapathy? Thalapathy. I think so. I don't think you carbonized it. Ah, bummer. And this is actually Rick and ours first Rajnakanth film. I don't know how many you guys have watched. How many Rajnakanth film? Super Star Wars. Three. Three. We've watched Entidan, 2.0 and Petta. Okay. Peace. Gotcha. Yeah, so this is our first introduction. Well we've seen a bunch of his songs and trailers and stuff like that. And we know him as Super Star Rajnakanth. But today we are reviewing, I think it's like our fifth or sixth Mani Ratnam film. And I know you guys have reviewed probably most of his work as well. But the 1991 film Thalapathy is directed and written and I believe a bunch of other stuff by Mani Ratnam composed by Raja Sir and then starring Rajnakanth Mamuti. You're going to have to help me with these other names. Shum. Arvind Swamy. Arvind Swamy. Shabana. Shabana. Shabana. Yeah, Shabana. Yeah, so obviously a bunch of people. So this is going to be a spoiler review. It came out 30 years ago. So if you haven't seen it, it was on Amazon for us here in the United States. I don't know where it was for you guys. It was a little bit difficult for us to find. Oh really? Because I thought that you can just stream it on Amazon Prime, but you have to rent it. Yeah. It's not included. And then we can't really use a VPN for that. So it didn't work. We had to watch it at another place and I think the quality for us was maybe even worse than on Amazon Prime. Oh no. Yeah. But it wasn't a great quality on Amazon either, which was unfortunate. I just assumed that was because it's almost, it's 30 something years old. But yeah. So obviously, spoiler review, if you haven't watched it, go watch it. Come back unless you'd like to be spoiled. And usually I ask Rick, but you are our guest. So I will ask Dennis, what did you think of the film? Your first initial thoughts? My first initial thoughts are that I didn't like it as much as the other Mani Ratnam movies that I already know, not all of them. But maybe it's, I think we have seen seven of his movies by now. And I think it's somewhere right up in the middle for me. I liked it, but it's definitely maybe a bit too raw for me. It's too, it's very jumpy from one place to the next. It's very hard cuts and edits and maybe a bit too long and maybe a bit too dramatic, but I liked it, but it's not my favorite Mani Ratnam. Yeah. Yeah, I would echo that. I would also blame it a lot on the quality of the print that we watched. Also, the song quality wasn't that great. So I always try to imagine what the movie must feel like in a big cinema with awesome 35 millimeter quality. Yeah. So I give it a little bit benefit of the doubt. And overall, I liked it quite a bit. I have to say, I thought the story was quite epic. I liked the character, the protagonist of Syria. I think he's a great character and he was very well portrayed by Berat Shikant and I liked a lot of the movie. I have some issues with the antagonist. I think it has a pretty weak antagonist, which is kind of strange because normally Amrish Puri is a great actor to portray bad guys. But I thought he was kind of underwritten. But overall, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. I liked the music. I liked the camera work by Santosh Sivan. This was the first collaboration of the two. And I think from there on, they worked together a lot. But I also liked movies like Roja and Bombay and Iroha more than this one. Yeah, Rick. Yeah, interesting. I actually liked this a lot. Yeah, I yeah. And I hope somebody would see this film who's in the circle of influence that does film restoration because I think a lot of the problem with the visual is the fact that this has just decayed over the years and has taken really good care of. I mean, thankfully, we've got this version in digital so it won't decay any more. But if somebody could get to the original film and do some restoration and some color correction, it would make a huge difference. But as far as overall story, overall enjoyment of the film, I liked the rough edges on it. I thought they matched the rough nature of the character, the primary character that's portrayed by Rajinaka, as well as I thought I agree completely. The story is a very epic story. It's very compelling. It delves into nature versus nurture. It delves into the differences of abandonment and being cast and the fact that you're dark and the issues, particularly the nature versus nurture. I thought I thought everything that he did with his directing choices were done in a way that were intentional, like even even choosing to do slow motion sequences for the fight sequences. Any at any time there was something that I saw a flaw in, I kind of was apologetic in the same way I'm apologetic for Tarantino's early films. And this is one of the earlier kind of films. And I got to say, we mentioned this before Corbin in the music video we saw from the film, but I am completely entranced by Shobana's portrayal. She is, for me, to this film, what Alia was for Gully Boy. I kept waiting for her to appear on the screen again. So I liked it a lot. Yeah, I enjoyed it. I probably echo a bunch of all of your stuff. I enjoyed it. It was definitely a mixed bag for me. I think, but I do agree, I think most of it was technical. I did notice a lot of editing issues with this film. The fact that it was like you want to get into what they're portraying. And then they literally just cut to another scene and it like takes you out of it. But obviously I chalked a lot of that up to the the how old the film is, even though we have seen films that are almost as old that do have a better quality to them. I don't like I don't know if it's what Rick said. It's just they didn't keep up with this film. And some of the stuff like that, you could definitely tell the earlier work of Money Rottenham, as opposed to we've seen obviously I love Bombay and Roja and obviously Dil say is way down the line. And so you can't really compare the technological stuff of that film to this film. But I liked even though there was like a quality issue, I loved what the cinematographer did with what he had. I thought there were some extremely gorgeous shots in this. Rashid Khan exceeded my expectations. I wasn't expecting a lot just because I know he's not known for being a thespian. He's more of a he's a superstar. But that's what I heard about this film before we went into, which is why I wanted to start with. This is one of his better performances. And so I thought he did really well. I loved all the ladies. I thought Mammoudi did well. I do agree if you're talking about the the protagonist that just kind of showed up every once in a while, that I at towards the end, I almost forgot he was in the film and I was like, oh, OK. And I did. I know this is based off, I believe, a poem, their relationship. I don't know. I don't know if you know what it was called. It's it's based on the epic Indian tale, Marbarata. Yeah, I think it's the name. Yeah, I think that's what I was only learned that after watching the movie. Yeah. And there there were certain like the end. I don't know if I loved. And I did hear a rumor that the end is not the original ending of this film. So you guys could tell me in the comments, but I did read a bunch of different stuff. There's not just one source that said originally, Rajanakant was he died and Mammoudi lived. But the audience did not like that. And so they changed the ending to for the audience. You guys can tell me if that's true. Yeah, please, please tell us in the comments. Yeah, because I also I also read that. But then on Wikipedia, I read that Mani Radnam always had in mind Suriya surviving because he thought he had such a hard life and he wanted to give the character a little bit more of an happy ending. And I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by the end because after half the movie, I thought, OK, Suriya will probably end up dead at the end. Kind of reminded me with the two brothers, like movies like Mother India or Divar, Divar, Spoiler Alert. I might have a chance. Character also dies. So I was prepared for that. And then when it didn't happen, I was like, hey, that's a that's a nice little twist. And then this this epic little revenge finale, which was pretty awesome. I thought, yeah, I did drive a style almost. Yeah, I did a good comparison. Go ahead. It reminded me of Taxi Driver, the way that he goes to the house and just shoots everybody. It's and with all the blood movies, the movie has these outbursts of violence, which are in mind. And he cuts the the arm of one. I loved it. Officer. Yes, everybody in the head. And it's really it's it's pretty gruesome. Yeah, when it's it uses violence, it's pretty gruesome. Yes. Yeah, I was surprised. That was one of my favorite parts of the film. Let's talk about the acting. Like I said, Roshan Akant, I saw it did a really good job. I thought his strongest perform parts were actually when he was being more subtle as opposed to the big outbursts he had. I thought he was a pretty natural actor most of the time. And so I was quite I was quite surprised because I was expecting. I don't want to say Salman Khan, obviously, but like I was expecting something a lot bigger in terms of just well, I'm going to get I'm going to get trolled in the comments for that. I know it, but I didn't have I didn't have a ton of expectations. So he definitely exceeded my expectations as well. Did all the ladies. So I don't know what you guys thought. Yeah, it was the same for me. I think money right now had in mind to to make a little bit more realistic movie with Roshan Akant. The problem is that we haven't seen anything with Roshan Akant prior to this movie. Yeah, we haven't seen his big superstar movies. But I thought that the movie was kind of a nice mixture of Masala type movie with songs and love and the mother who's crying for the lost son and stuff like that. But also there is more depth to it. And I thought that Roshan Akant did a pretty pretty remarkable job, especially, for example, the scene in the temple where he's praying and his mother is praying next to him. And they are both looking to the back when the train is coming by. And at that point, they don't know each other. And that was a beautiful scene. Also, when he learns about his mother from her new husband, I think it was at the beach. There was this sunset in the background, also a beautiful, beautiful camera work in that scene. And yeah, I liked a lot of those quieter moments with him. Yeah, yes. Yeah, I'd agree. Yes, Rajikant is yes, some of these some very quiet moments where he's just monologuing his way through and telling about his his life and his upbringing and how his mother dumped him. And it's pretty great. I was I was I was surprised by that, too, because we only know him from those movies who are maybe two or three years old. And he's an older man now. He's 41 in this one. Yeah, he plays a 32 year old, I think is. Yes, yeah, in 2.0. He's already, I mean, how old is he now? I'm 70. I think it's 70 years. And you can you can see it a bit that he's that he's a bit older now. But here I was surprised that he gets gets this gets this this seriousness out of him. I loved it. I loved it. Yeah. Yeah, I, too, was impressed with how pretty grounded every single actor was in the film. Everybody was very grounded, which which oftentimes with a film that has a lot of action and we we discovered a lot with South Indian films, too, there's a style to acting sometimes that I've relegated toward being overacting. And we get a lot of comments that say, No, if you've been to the region, this is really the way they behave. It was one of my primary gripes I had with Super Deluxe, because it felt such overacting at times. And I didn't get any of that. I felt everybody was really grounded. There's definitely a level of this for me that's that's subjective because I've had a recent healing in relationship with my my mother. So the whole healing aspect of him being with his mom when he says to her at the one point when he says, I just can't stop calling you mom was very for me. I don't expect someone else to have that impact, but there's as is the often the case with movies, these providential timings when they come into your life that cause you to like them more than others might. I think that's a huge contributor for me. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And what who you were talking about as well, the I loved we can talk about her and Mamoudi. So Subana, right? Yes. Yeah. This is our first film of hers. We've seen her in songs. Sorry, my mom and she's got one heck of a resume, man. Sorry, my mom just called me. But no, tell her I'll be over. This is normal. So don't don't don't look don't look into this. But yeah, I thought I thought she did really well. I actually wanted her a lot more in this film. I wanted I wanted to be able to explore her. I think y'all have seen more films of hers than we have because the one with a huge resume, the one where she's the demon possessed one, I believe you guys have seen. Yeah, that's the one she's excellent in that one. I want to I want to see a lot more of her because I feel like she was almost underutilized sometimes in this. And I thought she did a really good job. But it's just I wish she was in it more. I was actually real sad when it was like this is just cut and dry, which actually surprised me. I was like, I thought they were going to end up together. So this film actually did surprise me quite a bit. And so I did appreciate that. But I thought she did well. I thought Mammoudi did a good job as well in in his role. But I don't know what you guys thought about those two. Yes, I like I like Mammoudi. I like Mammoudi very much. I'm I was almost a bit disappointed that he's not the villain of the story because Mammoudi has this he has this this villainy presence if he wants to. We have seen a few of his older movies by now at the end of the 70s, 80s movies. And I mean, just his face. He has the perfect face for to be to be a villain. Yeah. But I was surprised how how fast they got into this friendship between the two. And he's he's he's also great. Yeah. But I think just like you said that Shobana is probably a bit underutilized. Yeah, she's she's the female figure in the. I think it's not even the first half. You could say because she's she's getting into the background after maybe 40 minutes or so, which is kind of sad because she's she's really good. But yeah, yeah, she doesn't get enough time. Yeah, yeah, for sure. One of the primary things for me, like back to Money Rotman's direction. There was a moment I noticed and I found a lot of these moments, which is what was made me so forgiving of things that were choppy or other flaws. There's a moment when Syria's mom is having a conversation with the dad, right? And he's she is realizing who Syria actually is that this is her son. And he hasn't said anything, but he knew. And I just happened to pause the movie in that moment because I got a phone call. And when I looked back at the screen, I saw the way he framed the shot and he framed the shot. And he did this in several places because I started looking for it. He framed the shot so that he not only got a close up on the husband, but her reflection was framed perfectly in both lenses of his glasses. And and he did that in several instances. He did it again when Syria is talking to him and he's wearing his glasses and he had a close up tight shot on him. And you could see Syria perfectly in both reflections on the glasses. And I thought, how can I? How can I fly a guy who's paying that close of attention? Yeah, to try to get imagery for us? Yeah, sounds like I should have paid more attention to. I think it was possible to see this in the version that we saw. Yeah, I bet that was one of my favorite parts of the film was the cinematography throughout, even though even on Amazon, it was not a great quality picture that that we had. Even though maybe I had it on my 55 inch screen. So obviously, maybe that helped a little bit. But like the fact that even in there, you could tell how how much care he took in his shots and how most of them were extremely cinematic. And that was one of my favorite parts of the film, even though like the quality was not great. Or the the editing was, I think, probably the biggest one of the biggest drawbacks to the film. In terms of me not not loving the film. It's just because I think I probably could have, if they would have let me stay in some of these moments even more. It's just like they'll this big emotional moment and then they're cut to another scene and I'm like, oh, OK, we're here. It was it was also a bit crazy how fast some stories, some plot points were were gone through because they're like you said, it's so it's the editing is so so raw and quick. In many points that we have in one scene, Devaraj is arrested. The next scene, he's beaten up. The next scene is the riots on the street. In the first scene, we see he's free again and the traitor it's all it's all done in one minute. And yeah, yes, it's crazy. Yeah, it was fast sometimes. It was too much for me at some point. Four scenes that tell everything. Jimmy, I want to talk a little bit about some of the songs. And I think the heart of the movie is probably this friendship between Surya and Devaraj. And I loved I think it's probably the last song. It's this celebration when they are for once happy. I think when when Devaraj is becoming a becoming a father. And it's this celebration outside and they are just having this dance party and it's a super awesome song. And then, of course, the editing, like you said, is rather quick. And I think it's only five minutes later and the wife is losing a child. But this song and dance sequence was was so much fun. And I enjoyed that a lot. Yeah. Yeah, I also want to point out the two things when we've mentioned him a couple of times, but Arvind Swamy, I thought I thought was very solid and serious. Yeah, yeah, Arjun. And then I was I didn't remember that he was in this, but I was really happy to see the legend Amrish Puri in this. Yeah, I just he's got such a great screen presence. It was I was so happy to see that he was in it. And I thought he, like everyone else, I just thought the ensemble did a great job. He was definitely underutilized for sure. That was that was that was one of the big because, like I said, right at the end, he came back in because he was supposed to be this the one that kills him. And I'm like, oh, I completely forgot that you were in this film. Like, you really don't you really don't feel this, this animosity against this villain. Yeah. He's three. I think that he's three times he's in the movie. Yeah. And then you're supposed you're supposed to feel something or feel this this raw violence in the end, which is there. But he's not the he's not the villain. He's just some guy there. But I was supposed to be there. Yeah, no, go ahead. Go ahead. We're talking about another character. This I think the wife of Ramana, the guy who is getting killed at the beginning. She's also also only in the movie in a few scenes. But her character totally worked for me. I thought this was really, really a tragic side storyline that that Surya is marrying her. And I really enjoyed this whole dynamic between the little girl, between Surya and and her daughter. And I liked how Surya was completely open about his past and about his feelings towards that daughter, but not really to anyone else. He couldn't even tell Mamouti's character about his brother and his past. But that little girl was kind of his his his person to trust. And I liked the dynamic a lot. Yeah, yeah, it really accented the for me. The heart of it is that nature versus nurture aspect of the character of Surya, because he's at one time, he's got this deep moral code of Robin Hood and protecting the poor. And you can tell there's this goodness inside of him. And then on the other hand, he can be fricking, heavily rough and that sense of repentance he has the shame he feels toward that. I just I think it's such a great character. And it reminded me so much. I would love to know what Anurag Kashyap feels about this film because it really feels like it's a film that in his library of films. He's like, yeah, that I wanted to make movies like that. When I was a kid, I saw that movie. I'm like, yeah, I want to make a movie like that. Yeah, they the violence. You know, I love violence. That was great. Great show. It almost reminded me of like the end when he was going Rambo. And what's is that guy that he was going to kill in the end? I forget the character's name. But it was almost like the end of Django when when when he came in and just shot everybody up in the house. And it was all like extremely like the guns like that. He was just carrying a pistol, but it shot somebody back like 10 feet. So I I really because it almost shot because I didn't expect when the violence did happen. It was extremely violent a lot of times. And it was graphic. People's fingers got blown off and it made me very happy. And it's one of those points where the the quick editing and the writing fit because you're kind of surprised how we see how David dies and then it's cut and he's going berserk. And this yeah, it's working that way for sure. There was there was also a little detail that I liked a lot. And when when Surya is beating up Ramana at the beginning of the movie in this beautiful rain scene, he's kicking him off of some roofs. He's falling one roof. Oh, yeah, that was good. Don't work right then. And later when Surya is about to to get married to his now widow, he goes the same path up again and you can still see the bumps in the roofs. Oh, he goes. He goes to the wife and he has, of course, this this bad conscience. This because he killed her husband. Yeah, it's really guilty about it. And you can still see the the bumps in the roofs. And I thought it was amazing, a great detail. Yeah, I didn't I didn't notice it. That's that's great. I on that note, though, that that what was her name, the actress's name that played his his wife in this. Banu Priya, I think it's the name. Yeah, I thought she did a really good job. Even though like she was extremely small, her and her daughter and Rajnikanth's dynamic dynamic, I thought was really good. And then I also thought Rajnikanth's mom's husband. I thought he did a really good job. I don't know that actress name either. What was it? I don't know. Was it Charlie? I don't know. Anyway, you know what I'm talking about. I thought he did it well. Yeah, yeah, I thought I thought the stunt work again, the way he directed it, he really went out of his way to make sure that a lot of the things were done in such a way that the cameras here, the guy hitting here so that you didn't see mistakes as much in slow motion. Added tension to it. He used that a lot. And I thought that one scene falling down the roof was really, really good, good stunt work. Simple stunt work is usually the most difficult to pull off. And then score wise, we talked about the songs. I mean, I love all the songs, but I felt that the totality of the score, even some of the more melodramatic things that often doesn't work, I thought they worked. I thought for the most part, the score was pretty epic and complementary throughout, didn't you? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, the main theme or this, let's call it love theme between Surya and his mother is great. It pops up every constantly. Yes. And it's it's pretty, it reminded me of the of the main theme of Nayakan, I don't know if you see that one. We haven't seen that one, I know about that film. Yeah, and he used it. He used the theme in that movie also constantly. And it works, it works so well. It's so it's so emotional and it's nice that it has this connection to the train, the sounds of the train, because you hear this train. And then it's the connection and the theme starts. You always have this connection to his childhood. And that's great. Yeah, yeah, as was the connection of the festival, the fact that he was thrown out during this festival that's known for being a festival where you throw out the garbage. I thought that was really good writing. Yeah, and I know you guys usually do this on your channel. What what rating would you give this one? Probably for me, a very close eight. Eight, OK. And you Dennis, I'd give it a seven, seven. Rick, what would you give it? We don't do this, but yeah, we don't. Well, I can tell you what I give it in terms of the 10 Tamil films that we've seen. It's in my top four. It's right up there for me with 96 and Hiram. And yeah, actually, for me, I really like Bombay, but this one, but I think that providential connectivity and the rawness of it gives it just an edge for me above Bombay. Oh, really? No, I still like Bombay. I like Bombay probably Roja still more than I like than I like this one. But I did. I did like this film. I'd probably give this a seven point five out of out of 10. I can do that. You can do that, yes. And give it a solid eight, maybe an eight point one, just a little bit more. The jury. All right, well, let us know what the next Tamil and Rajnikanth film are. Do you guys know what you're watching next? Do you want to promote anything that you're what's going on in your channel? Um, we are. I'm uploading a review of a Mohanlal movie on Friday because it's his birthday birthday on Friday, and I'm going to review Calla Pani. I think it's a name. Yeah. And today I want to go ahead. Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. I thought you were done. Go ahead. And today I want to watch the Karnan. I think the new Tamil. Oh, yeah, how was it? No, I'm going to watch. Oh, yeah, you're going to watch it. Don't know yet. Now, what I was going to say for a lot of you stupid babies who don't know this, the channel, your guys's channel, you don't react to stuff like we do and do reviews. You guys are just knocking out movies one after the other and watching and reviewing. And how many movies are you guys reviewing every week? At least what? Three, five or six. Maybe it seems that way. No, no, usually usually three. Three. Yeah, but I'm only I'm only in for one one. But how many do you watch a week? I know you only review you've released three. We're trying. We're trying to plan ahead. And usually I watch maybe five, I guess. Yeah, that's nice. Love it. Well, if you haven't subscribed to them, I'll link their channel in the description below and let us know what's the next film we should watch is down below.