kamalranjan

Alright, folks, buckle up for Blind Spot, Rakesh Varma's Tamil thriller that tries to be a slick murder mystery but stumbles like a drunk uncle at a wedding. Naveen Chandra leads this whodunit as Officer Vikram, tasked with unraveling the death of Divya (Rashi Singh), which looks like a suicide but-surprise!-is totally a murder. Cue the suspicious household: a husband, maid, brother-in-law, and stepkids, all acting shadier than a tree in a storm.

Here's the deal: this film has more holes than a block of Swiss cheese. A dead body's chilling in the house, and nobody's shedding a tear? Not the husband, not the maid, not even the brother-in-law who's probably hiding something because he's an NIA officer. Everyone's a suspect, sure, but they're all so dry-eyed it feels like they're auditioning for Statues: The Movie.

Naveen Chandra, bless his heart, sleepwalks through the role with a face flatter than my attempts at making dosa. The guy's got one expression, and it's "I forgot my lines." The lines are so cheesy they could star in a pizza commercial. The twist? If you don't see it coming, you're probably still watching cartoons with your morning cereal-it's that obvious. And the motive for the killing? Let's just say it's dumber than those Reddit conspiracy theories.

On the plus side, the cinematography is moody, and the background score tries to hype things up. But Blind Spot is a thriller that forgets to thrill, a mystery that's about as mysterious as my dog's food bowl disappearing at dinner time.

Skip this one unless you're desperate for a nap.

In Eleven, debutant director Lokesh Ajls and lead actor Naveen Chandra attempt an emotionally charged crime-revenge thriller, but what arrives on screen feels more hollow than haunting. If seasoned critic Rajiv Masand graded on substance, this one would score low on screenplay coherence - and higher on flash-in-the-pan action.

The film centers on a revenge narrative intertwined with student bullying, yet it's built on a script so amateurish that even the most straightforward elements feel forced. There are far too many illogical action sequences that don't advance either character or plot-more spectacle than meaning. We never see the psychological toll on either the child victims or the killer, so the film's justification for violence lacks any real emotional gravity.

Naveen Chandra tries to lend gravity to his role, but his expressions fall flatter than a silent reel-there's no emotional journey, no cracks in the facade to let us in. The cop-drama tropes are ripped straight out of medieval revenge sagas, without any modern twist or insight. By the end, the revenge feels neither earned nor cathartic but simply expected.

Technically, Eleven has polish: the action choreography is sleek, the cinematography is moody, and the production values feel ambitious for a debut. But shine and shimmer can't hide the hollow core. Without a gripping narrative engine, the film feels like a clever wrapping on mundane bones.

You can skip this one, I'll go with 4 out of 10, it has wasted my time. Honestly.

Lara is directed by first-time filmmaker Mani Moorthi, who aspires to deliver a gripping suspense thriller set against the backdrop of Karaikal's coastal mysteries.

I have to say that the film struggles to rise above its evident budgetary limitations, often resembling a television crime drama like a CID episode rather than a cinematic experience.

The story starts with the discovery of a woman's decomposed body washed ashore, setting the stage for an investigation led by Inspector Karthikesan, portrayed by M. Karthikesan.

However, the script's predictability becomes apparent early on, with plot twists that seasoned viewers can foresee. The storyline borrows heavily from familiar Tamil cop dramas, presenting an amnesiac woman, a murderous husband, and a lackluster cop character-elements that fail to inject freshness into the genre.

TOI wrote, "proves you can tick all the right boxes on the suspense checklist and still leave your audience feeling like they've read yesterday's case files."

It is not an excrement, but you can't indulge in this mess. The story is fine; it's just not eerie enough.

I'll go with 5/10 for this one.