Saturday 18 April 2015

OK BANGARAM MOVIE REVIEW

Bottomline : A light-hearted breezy romantic journey whose situations do ring a bell with each one of us, but the lack of plot or depth never gives us room to emotionally invest in the characters, ultimately rendering it rather tepid.

Review : OK Bangaram, or OK Kanmani (as its original Tamil version goes), can best be described as Mani Ratnam's holiday film. Not that this is a new territory to him, as many scenes in the first half especially bear resemblances to his far superior Sakhi (or Alaipayuthey in Tamil). However, he only flirts with the issue of live-in relationships but never really tackles it as deftly as writer Jaideep Sahni's Shuddh Desi Romance did. Barring the two leads, other roles such as the Alzheimer-affected woman or Nithya Menon's mother, inter alia, come off as half-baked. The conversations between the actors are instantly relatable but, after a while, you can't help getting a sense of love overdose even as the screenplay drags along only to exacerbate things further. A.R. Rahman's music is easy on the ears with catchy tunes that gel nicely with the narrative. But the real problem with OK Bangaram is the absence of any tangible conflict between the actors that could have made it a more engaging watch. What we get, however, are only superficial minor fights and tensed moments which get resolved only too conveniently, like the unconvincing climax that appears cobbled up to somehow accommodate a happy ending.

To Mani Ratnam's credit, acting by the lead pair is solid. Dulquer Salman (of Bangalore Days fame) and Nithya Menon share a sizzling chemistry that's sometimes hard to resist and both actors deliver mature performances that hold the film together even when it seems to fall apart.

I'm going with 2.5/5 stars. It may not be half as endearing as Ratnam's previous films but if mushy romance is what you're looking for, then OK Bangaram is right up your alley.