 I am... Sweetie. You call me Sweetie? Your mother told me. Big Falsett. Instagram, Twitter, YouTube content. I've got some hatred on Twitter. Can't read the bubble. Guess what? Bye! He thought down go boom. And today we're doing a movie reveal. A film that came out this year! What? It's a 2021 Tamil film... Not... Tamil film, Karna. I almost said Tamil film, Karada. Not to be confused with Karna and the Barbarian. That's true. Do you like that one? Karna? Karna and the Barbarian? Conan, it's Conan, right? It was Conan. Conan. Yeah, I like Conan and the Barbarian. You liked it a little bit more. What was it? Death to Ming? What was that one? Death to Ming. Ming. It's... he's like... Flash! Oh! Oh, flash! Yeah! Wow! Let him save every one of us! Yeah, anyways, random. Sorry. Sorry. Stuff pops into my head. Yeah. So it came out in 2021. It actually came out in theaters in India, obviously, before all the lockdown stuff happened. Second wave. And then it dropped on Amazon, I believe, a week ago. And so this is a new Tamil film starring Dhanush. Dhanush? And written by Mari Salvaraj. Forgive me if I'm mispronouncing that. And obviously, starring Dhanush, Laul. There's a couple of them. Rajisha Vajayan, Yogi Babu. And then these two, I think. Yeah, Guri Kishan and Lakshmi Priya. And there's a lot of them. There's a lot of people in this film. So obviously, we can't say them all. So if you haven't watched it, go watch it. Come back if you don't like to be spoiled. It came out a while ago. So I think I'm more fine just doing this spoiler review right now. But Rick, your initial thoughts, please. My, ultimately, I'm sorry for Dhanush fans. I didn't like it, ultimately. Visually. The cinematography, especially at the outset of the film. Yeah, for sure. And then several spots throughout. Stunning. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, by far, the best thing about this is if you just want to watch some gorgeous cinematography. And if you have a lifetime of understanding the symbolism and mythology and the metaphors that are a part of the story that come from. And I always butcher the name of the Sanskrit text. The longest poem in the world, the Mahabrasha. I always run it. Yeah. If you have a framework for that, I bet you will like this 10 times more than someone who doesn't. Yeah, for sure. And it is for me, and I'll talk more about this. It falls victim, if I can use that word, I guess, to the same problems that the Christian film industry has in that the Christian film industry will incorporate things from the Bible. And because they've incorporated things from the Bible, the people in the industry consider it to be meritorious when there's other aspects of it artistically that fall short and they don't hear you when you say, but guys, can't you do what Mel Gibson does because he doesn't miss the artistic aspects of this and still does the stuff that you are holding up as meritorious. And the basic thing I think happened with this for me is it's not just lost in translation. It's the accentuation of that and the mythology and the metaphor and the symbolism when some of the other aspects artistically for me fell short. Overall, I did enjoy it. I do have problems with it, probably similar problems that you had with it that artistically I did have some issues. But overall, I actually really enjoyed it, especially obviously the cinematography and editing, it was absolutely gorgeous. I think I actually enjoyed most of the acting. I think one of the problems with some of the acting was more of the fact that it was synx sound as opposed to what is it called? I don't know what the technical term for it is. I know me too. I'm losing my brain right now. What is it? Sorry, Kim. When they actually take the audio from on set, which is obviously very common for here, I don't like ripping films too much because I know there's entire industries in Southern. That's just how they do it. And I can't just rip every single film for it. But that was probably some of the issues I had with some of the acting is because it's just so jarring sometimes when you can see their mouth and it's moving and it's a different emotional tone than what they gave. Yeah, there were other sound things as well. And more than that, the sound issue I had was by the time we reached the big battle sequence, all of the striking sounds, no matter how far away they were from camera, no matter if it was a sticker of hand, the striking sounds were uniform. They were the same sound level and they were the same sound itself. Yeah. But overall, I actually did enjoy it. And I did really... I did see some of those things that he saw at the end. I did enjoy the last bit, especially of the fight scene. This was a very mythological style. It wasn't obviously more realism in terms of the story of it. Even though it wasn't as visually carrying of this theme, it seemed to be reminiscent in the same way of Bahu Bali. Yeah. I did notice Denouche actually had, I think, a... Rajanakanth shirt on, at one point. And I actually think it was Tharabati. Well, then that would have been very... That would have been... Because we understand that there's parallels and it's interesting that we just saw that in the rest of this because it's the same story. But I did enjoy that. It was a mythological style of a story where, obviously, he's the hero. There's a ton of symbolism. Some, obviously, more obvious than others. Some, obviously, there was no way we'd be able to get being not in that culture. But I did enjoy a lot of that. I thought a lot of the actual fight was pretty good. Obviously, there was some stunt work that was a little cheesy, obviously, at times. And also, this did remind me sometimes of almost a Western sometimes a little bit. Even the music behind it sometimes, which reminded me of a Western. Which music was really good. Obviously, musical numbers with Denouche stuff, we were always going to be great. But I thought the overall score was excellent. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and so I could see a lot of that. Let's talk about the action. I thought Denouche actually did quite well. It was very similar to his other role that we've seen in Vada Chennai. Yeah. And so I would love to see something even more different from him. I get the feeling watching him, that this kind of a film doesn't really give him the kind of thing that would expand what he can do. Vespianatically, the coin in the phrase. He can tell he's a really talented actor. You can tell he can act. I actually enjoyed him both in this and in Vada Chennai. I know when there's a role out there where he could have sunk his teeth into and he could be like Fafa level at times. I can tell he has that level of talent in him. These two roles were just very similar to me. Yeah. Of those two. But obviously he's a laundry list of roles that we've yet to see. Yeah, they're brand new to him. I would like to see more from that. I think the main message of the film overall, there was a ton of messages actually. Yeah. But the fact that it was a small village who was being obviously oppressed by the neighboring villages, by the police, by the overall system. And they've basically overcome that and they had to fight for this actually. Right. It was like a brave heart. Or just a thousand stories like that where somebody who's a little guy is overcoming all the obstacles. And obviously this village is an incredibly passionate, tight-knit village. They have their problems with each other but they're all very communal and they will support each other if anything from the outside does happen. And so I did enjoy a lot of that. There were some moments that were, it happens in a lot of films that we've seen in Indian cinema. It's just some of the over-the-topness. Sometimes does creep in there and it does jar you a little bit. At least for us. Not for you guys, obviously. I know a lot of people really love this film and when we say stuff like that, you don't see it, but that's obviously where we're coming from. That's kind of what we saw. Sometimes. I actually thought, for the most part, everybody was pretty subdued except when you see some of the dubbing. Those are I think some of the main issues. Yeah, there wasn't anything very subtle and then you hear like this big, loud noise. I'm like, I know that's not coming from his mouth right now. Yeah, I didn't find there to be, while I didn't see anything brilliantly magnificent in the acting stuff, I didn't see anything glaringly horrifying where there's times where you're just watching it and you're like, okay, please just move on. I never experienced any of that. I'd say the two largest things for me that made it a challenge for me to become more engrossed and love the film, they both fall into that same category with, and I don't know how many of you have this frame of reference, there's the Christian film industry and they've made films over the years, Kirk Cameron's made a lot of films over the years there and the majority of them, nine out of 10, they fall very short artistically but they're applauded and heralded by the people within that industry in the Christian community and that's a very similar reminiscent to me of where you get an industry. I don't get that vibe because I have a really bad view of that industry and that did not touch this. No, no, no, but it was in this regard. It was in the fact that I think a lot of the applause for the film can be about the representation of the mythology and the metaphors and the connection from that ancient text and how it's being depicted on screen and that that in and of itself is enough to make it meritorious and that's what happens a lot with a film like Fireproof or a film like God's Generals or any number of films that have come out of the Christian film industry where I'll be talking to other people who are Christians and they're like, did you see and you see it and you're like, it was average and they're like, no, it was so and the reason they're so, they feel so good about it is because it's actually just presenting the texts and the moral compass that they want presented but it's lacking in some of the artistry and no matter what you say, they're like, the response isn't, oh, you're right, the artistry's lacking. The response that you get is you just didn't get it, you didn't appreciate it. That makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense. I don't know if I agree just because maybe I just have a very different view of the Christian film industry. This is nowhere near that style but I think I understand what you're saying, the messaging's part of it but I don't know if I would say that about this film. But like I said, my favorite part is probably, I mean, the cinematography in this. Unbelievable. It's my, I mean, at the end of the year review this might be in the conversation because some of the cinematography and editing of this film was so beautiful and brilliant, almost like Jalataku at times because some of the night shots were insane. The opening of the film, I thought if this is just the taste of what this film's gonna be, I'm astonished. Yeah. Because it was, it was a work of, there were moments in this where you're just appreciating the cinematography and this is fine artistry. Just absolutely breathtakingly stunning. Cinematography. Yeah. There was so many shots, especially when they, with the little, his sister who died obviously from the beginning. Yeah. And then she kept coming back with the mask which I believe I figured out was in some cultures, I believe in Tamil Nadu, you guys can tell me if this is wrong but when a woman or child dies they're really young, they almost become godlike. And so that was basically what it was. She became almost godlike and that was the god mask that she had on. Got it. And so that's why you kept seeing that symbolism. I believe that's what I read so you guys can tell me if that's correct or not. But some of those shots when she came in, they were stunning. Some of the, especially some of the night shots that they had in this thing were insane. I just looked at them like this is beautiful. And there were some things that we picked up on that you may think we missed but we got in symbolism like the kite slash bird aspect sequence when the bird comes and steals and takes the stuff of the tree as well as the police officer with his head off and the headless statues. What that meant, the sequence and structure of the film, how it runs and becomes that big battle, did some research because I wanted to see what is it I'm missing and you know it could pick up on and better understand. Even something, I understand that this symbolism but when it occurred for me it seemed not spoon fed but just so obvious that it just didn't make an impact for me like the untying of the donkey feet. Yeah, that one was the most obvious one. Yeah, the most obvious. And then the larger thing for the storytelling aspect it missed on two levels for me to connect me with the overall story. Because the story I think is a very interesting story and I think they do a very good job not knowing the original Sanskrit text by any stretch of the imagination. It seems that this is a very good adaptation of that. But the two aspects of storytelling that missed for me were the first one was a great storytelling has a sense of being universal and I felt like I was an outsider watching this thing take place. Again, the contemporary Christian film industry where it's like the only ones and then the other aspect was I didn't get an empathetic connection. I didn't get a human condition aspect where because you don't always have to relate to the circumstance to connect to the characters and what they believe what they're feeling, what they want. What I got, which happens a lot in some of the films that we see I got a lot of anger and then violence gets their anger out and gets the result of what they wanted. I didn't care very much about anybody in the end. I appreciated the metaphor and the symbolism but when we're getting to the peak of the climax of everything and what happens to grandpa I would imagine you'd want me caring and I didn't empathize with anybody. I think at least I thought they wanted you to probably care more for the community as a whole. Obviously, even though they were going through all the stuff they still very much wanted their village to be looked at well they wanted all their girls to go to school and actually I think the ending probably could have been cut I never liked those endings where they go ten years ever. I think it would have been a much stronger ending if they would have just cut right where they originally before the ten years later my personal I hate that I can probably assume what's going to happen in ten years I don't think you need to tell me I never liked those style of endings but obviously they I think they probably wanted you to care more about just the whole community but yeah I got that I think the love interest even though I thought they had good chemistry was a little underdeveloped I would have liked to have seen more of that and obviously I think the more of the story was about the community as opposed to them in their relationship but I thought she did really well and I thought they had good chemistry here in Denouche the songs were awesome I think it was the funeral of Denouche singing it was the promotional piece which was phenomenal really enjoyed that he has so much energy about him I think he's won a talented actor but he brings a good amount of energy to all of his roles so I liked the score overall of this and I think it probably could have been shorter as well I think the sweet spot for this would have been two hours to 215 is probably where I would have probably preferred it as opposed to 240 which I would imagine a lot of people would think 240 is a pretty trim run time when you consider the text that this comes from and how long this actually is but I thought for the most part the pacing did do pretty well maybe you guys can tell us why they do sync sound as opposed to in time sound maybe you guys can tell us why some industries decide to just not do that I don't know but that's always a struggle I know it's for both of us it's always a struggle when you see that I can tell that that's not the real voice so it takes me out of a lot of it it interferes with the suspension of disbelief so you guys can tell me why they do that sometimes I'm not going to blame this film because we've seen it in a lot a lot of films, no I don't know why they do it cost is it people don't care I can think of the fact that this is the way it's been done predominantly for so long so they're used to it and it's hard to change something that you're used to secondarily it is a time saver when you don't have to do retakes because of sound or then you have to do ADR work after the fact you just do everything post and when you're on set it's going to save you a lot of time to not have to deal with that which in turn will save you money especially when you want to make films and just pump them out if you're making a lot of films in an industry I guess for me it minimizes the artistry I would always prefer because the actor is in a different place in a studio than he is on set so I can tell in the voice the difference in his emotion than when he was on set because what he looked on camera was really nice and I actually probably would have preferred that over the audio of course because it's like what he was feeling he was in the moment just a little of where we're coming from when we talk about that that was probably my biggest but I hate griping on it just now because it's so prevalent I can't just gripe on it in every film I would like to understand why it happens but overall I did enjoy the film I would like to see more Dhanush as well as the main lead as well you know who else I did enjoy a lot we didn't talk about him Yogi Babu? I enjoyed him a lot I think he normally plays comedy roles I actually liked him a lot and his love interest is not Yogi's but Dhanush's I liked her a lot so let us know in the next Dhanush film that he really it's like a really great different character you know our style let us know what the next Dhanush film we should watch is down below