Interrogation

New movie Reviews and lots more Hot news .... LIKE THIS PAGE : English Hindi TAMIL TELUGU Facebook : Movie Review by Yunus Irshad https://www.facebook.com/YunusIrshadsMovieReview

Visaaranai (U/A) TAMIL ---- my Rating: ★★★★½ POWERFUL Interrogation

STRENGTHS:- * Inspired by true events.... * Excellent performances by the cast, will deserve an national award. * GV's powerful background score..... * Perfectly chopped by Late editor Kishore.... * Story Screenplay Dialogues and Direction....

WEAKNESSES:- * After interval it lags for few minutes.....

FINAL VERDICT:- *Overall.. it is next level movie in tamil cinema showing some realistic events happened in southern part of India. I was really amazed with this script, In last 30 mins your heart will be pumping as you have gripped into the movie so deeply with some crisp screenplay. Sometimes movie gives a feel of myskin style. First half is based on real incidents, whereas the second half was well written by Vetrimaaran.

A group of immigrants (Pandi, Murugan, Afsal and Kumar) are detained by the local state police, tortured and forced to admit to a crime they have no knowledge of. When all hope seems to be ... See full summary » Director: Vetrimaaran Writer: Vetrimaaran Stars: Dinesh, Samuthirakani, Anandhi | See full cast & crew »

The first few montages of the yet-to-dawn nocturnal life is enough to invite the film festival community to engage in the story. Visaranai is the big screen transformation of Chandra Kumar's documented novel Lock Up; a true story about how police brutality and inhuman interrogation techniques go into tormenting innocents to admit false crimes. A group of migrants from Tamil Nadu working in Andhra Pradesh are taken into illegal custody by local police . What follows is a gruesome police drill involving batons, boots and banana stems. All they want is a confession; a fake confession. 'Attakathi Dinesh' as Pandi is the stand-up guy unwilling to surrender fearing a larger force at play and more importantly, he wants to do a great many things in life. 'Aadukalam' Murugadoss as Murugan can be easily tricked, Afsal is innocent to the core and Kumar is severally battered at an early stage.

The characters we meet on screen are controlled and manacled by the System in ways unprejudiced. Ajay Ghosh as the vicious Guntur chief Vishweshwar Rao is one such police officer with a disappointing career profile, a face like death and a body trained to beat the life out of others. But still, Attakathi Dinesh does a great many things as he aspires to do so when he is set free. There is a point of saturation in the film where even Vishweshwar Rao runs out of breath. If apathy, personal gain and atrocity ever had a threesome, mishaps like Ajay Ghosh tend to happen. The harsh acoustics of yelling can get on your nerves at some point. This was a necessity made by the film's structure to facilitate such relentless thrashing and torture. With so many battered souls locked up, it puts you in their place and raises questions. But Vetrimaran is not here to preach, his screenplay and dialogs stay direct, relaxed and procedural. Neither the water- boarding nor the vicious slow paced thrashing had any effect on Pandi, it was hope, his tenaciousness, his trickiness and a chance TN police intervention that puts an end to their misery.

Played by the ever obstinate Samuthirakani, Murugavel is a TN police officer on a special mission to trap an elite white collar auditor. Pandi and his friends return a favor and help Murugavel. The second half travels to familiar grounds of Tamil Nadu. The rich and fraudulent auditor KK (Kishore) who spurts money philosophy is the victim of the another brutal interrogation. It is his adage on 'System' that links the background events. All this talk about the System being the Kingmaker and that 'your actions have set things in motion' establishes a thick premonition. Thankfully, this talk is kept to a minimum. Had it not, then a part of audience's imagination would have reached heights of hype expecting a Brobdingnagian revelation of some sort.

There is calmness meandering in all scenes. The casual statement of the lawyer and the video logging of reconstruction scene shows the normalcy of situation and sheds light on how police practices defy law and makes you wonder on the number of cases solved by false/forced convictions. Taking a few incentives, Visaranai achieves a gritty cinematic leap. There is also a half baked romantic connection that is left to rot much like the irrelevant voiceless lives in jail. There is coherence of how the middle class working community from lower backgrounds are taken for granted. The abuse of Shanthi in the hands of her owner, the case of 4 street vagrants picked up from a Nellore park, the provision store owner who is blackmailed - a constant living in fear and hardship. 'Attakathi Dinesh' channels Pandi vehemently. He has the 'Andy Dufresse kinda' reluctance to give in. Pandi sure does suffer a hell lot in comparison. Both wrongly captured. One convicted and the other unwilling to get convicted. Maybe there can be more to say about these characters in contrast. That will be for another day. For a brief period in the last sequence of the first half, it felt like it was going to be a complete escape and survivalist episode.

The movie is a genius thriller in the making. Although not as tension seeking as Michael Mann-esque film, we feel the trap Pandi, Murugan & Afsal walk into as they accept the shameless duty of domestic help. Secondary characters make a lasting impact especially the promotion ignored officer in TN station. Muthuvel is an upright police pushed by higher officials and disoriented by the System into pursuing Pandi. Personally, my fondness for cinematography has grown rather exceptionally over the past few years. A film devoid of creative and meaningful visual strategy doesn't excite me. There were a few; very few parts in the film that meant visually nothing but then, this emptiness perfectly defines realism - through the dingy corners of highways and the wandering nightlife patrols, the blurry hope of escapism emanates. The final moments are as tense and seems like a cliffhanger until the camera zooms out to the fullest. The sudden pull and push of camera; this shift in movement noticed at a pivotal stage grounds the approach in realism as the hand-held camera becomes a secret surveillance tool, an all seeing eye - the eye of the system. As it looks down upon Pandi and Murugavel standing through knee-deep murky water, it signifies the troubled position of two candidates with no evil tendencies irrelevantly chosen by the powerful.

Visarani in its vagueness to expose a larger atmosphere for the Organism of System perfectly sums up the horrible dilemma of innocent fishes pushed into predatory waters that is timely polluted by forces unknown.

Another sensational movie from Dhanush K. Raja, the producer of 'The Crow's Egg' that I recently reviewed in this site. This time he joined the hands with the writer, director who bought him a best actor award at the Indian Academy Award for the movie 'Playground'. The film was based on the novel 'Lock Up' that loosely inspired by the experiences of the author who is an autorickshaw driver now.

I already mentioned that Indian cinema is waking up, knocking the doors of the international film critics, films festivals and film buffs. Thanks to the young generation in the film industry, looking for the international market expansion. It's time for you to check it out some of the Indian parallel cinemas, not the masala films. If you think you're totally in an unfamiliar territory, then it will be good to you start with this one.

India is like the European Union, where each nation speaks a different language and its own culture, likewise each Indian state has a different language and culture. That's why it might be called the Indian subcontinent. This story begins when three Tamil labourers who are illegally living in a city park to save rent money from the work in the neighbor state Andhra, will be taken to the police custody without letting know them the reason. The rest of the film exposes the law enforcement agency's brutality on these young innocent men to force to accept a crime that is not committed by them which is a violation of human rights.

"The influence is more important than skill when it comes to promotions."

The film has two phases and they were not focused on any particular characters. It is a couple of different events based flick that connected to each other by the characters. But everything is about corruption in the police force and common people who affected by that. Kind of unpredictable scenes with the decent twists. The first half takes place in Andhra Pradesh with the backdrop of some robbery case and then in the next half it moves to Tamil Nadu with once again a cop tale, but different scenario.

Welcome to the Indian police's torture chamber. The dark side of the Indian police force. Not all about the bad cops, but also involves those honest ones caught between dishonest ones from the higher power. There was a small romance plot in the opening, later it vanished when entire story focus shifted to police interrogation. The pace had many up and down, that helped to turn things around like transforming from one state of condition to another.

This theme was exactly opposite to the old saying 'lightning never strikes the same place twice'. You can call it a bad luck, but for some people like the youngsters from this movie who came from the poor families from the rural without proper education, it is a matter of life and death and injustice. I won't be surprised if international remake are made. It won this year's Indian Academy Awards in the three categories including the supporting actor which was one of the important cop roles. So I won't be surprised either if it was picked to represent India for the 2017 Oscars.

This is a Kollywood film, but watching it feels like a some dark tone Korean crime-drama- thriller. I have seen some of Indian cop films, but so far this one was the best when it comes to the realism yet not depicted them in a good way. I highly recommend it, but don't expect a genuine screenplay with a grand twist. It makes you feel how the innocence was taken away from the poor by the people with power, really heartbreaking.

9/10

Visaranai (Interrogation) captures the harsh truth behind Police department corruption, thirst for Power, urge to close cases and how it affects the life of four runaway youngsters in a non-native state. It is just not that actually the plot traverses to the native state to show that no mercy is left in the department on handling the poor guys. It is based on true incidents which became a novel named "Lock Up" by M. Chandrakumar. Well that explains the crux of the tale but what makes it more solid and interesting is the chilling screen play and 100 % pure cinema type of handling where there was no absolute space for commercialism. Hats off to Director Vetrimaran who has dared to experiment this genre which reflects the ruthless, impolite, merciless, callous nature of some police officers. The plot gets enhanced by the performers like Dhinesh, Samuthirakani, Kishore, Adukalam Murugadoss and some more actors whom we hardly know by their names. The thrashes that these boys take up looks so vivid, raw, brutal, inhuman and clearly I understand this movie will be a hard to digest fact for soft or weak hearted audience. So people of this sort you are warned better try some comedy in the next screen. On the technical front the cinematography and BGM also shows the pain. This movie is a clear warning that there is a corrupt system out there waiting for innocent prey and if we are caught it is like the hell's hole and no escape. I didn't find anything as such which ruins the flow or script. So pure award category no scoring required.

Verdict : "Watch it if you can take it"

-Sivakumar Balachandran

Visaranai is a movie with the highest level of filmmaking (no songs, no heroism, no nonsense) coming out from Tamil cinema.. Director Vetrimaran of Aadukalam, has done brilliant depiction of novel 'Lock Up' based on a true story(great end credits).. He portrayed an hard- hitting screenplay to show the miserable plight of innocent immigrants being made scapegoats for the powerful system (call it brutal system).. From the very first scene he will arrest your attention and what follows, is a riveting narrative and gripping cinematic experience!! The casting is first class, Attakathi Dinesh and his 3 friends(Aadukalam Murugan), the supporting cast of Samuthirakani, Kishore and Policemen In the custody, given top notch performances.. Dinesh(one of the most underrated actor) another effortless, heart- wrenching performance while the terrific Samuthurakani finding himself stuck in between this brutal system but trying to act fair for god sake, he was excellent to describe!! The private interrogation part between Samuthurakani and Kishore one of the best part of the movie.. Vetrimaran made it a classic encounter against the painful, merciless lockup scenes.. And when you think things get better for Dinesh and friends, misfortune struck again, inevitably.. Move on from there, Afsal execution scenes will make you breaking inside.. Spell bounded!! The intense climax ended in the dark, intentionally he wants us to know nothing can be justified that ill-fated Dinesh character, very well crafted by Vetrimaran.. He is certainly, one of a kind filmmaker in the league of Bala and Myskkin!! This cinema is so world class!!