Jithindurden

The immense influence of this film is mindboggling. While watching it, I could clearly see the huge influence on so many so-called action and political films of 80s Malayalam cinema, none of which comes close to this. But it also influenced world cinema by its influence on Hong Kong cinema, a direct remake which started a whole slew of movies, including those of John Woo, which in turn influenced Hollywood. The "wall" between the two brothers growing up to be on different sides of the law was explored in a way that had moments that reminded me of lesser films inspired by it, but even if those lesser films were able to take some of the visual cues, they couldn't match the dialogue writing. There are a lot of great dialogues that are sharp and cut too deeply. And Amitabh Bachchan is just incredible. He carries himself with such swag that even when the movie explores the societal collapse, inequalities, etc, his actions come off as something you can't completely disagree with. It can be said that Shashi Kapoor's character is not written well enough to show the other side of it, but even with that and even now, I think a lot of common people would relate to the kind of emotion that Bachchan's Vijay has. The success of the KGF films, which are so obviously inspired by this, but just focus a lot more on action and being anti-establishment, clearly shows this.

This and Sholay, the same year, 50 years ago, feel like such a big year for Bollywood. But both also feel like they had elements that ultimately also wanted to please the law and order of the system.

You expect to see great action with incredible animation from Demon Slayer with some emotional scenes, and it is delivered. As the first part in the trilogy to end the series, this movie does most things following the usual formula of the series regarding the kind of obstacles, emotions, flashbacks, etc. It is repeating the formula that has been successful in the earlier seasons, which kind of makes you not as impressed as the initial times, but it is still effective enough. The length could've been reduced a little bit; as of now, the length of certain sections makes me feel like they still plan to later release this in episodic format after the theatre run. Really glad to see the number of theatres and the occupancy this got.

The quirky feel-good, almost neurodivergent formula of Althaf works great for me. The way all the characters behave as if they have a screw loose and are living their normal life was delightful, honestly, it is not represented enough in movies. The film is not perfect; the second half had some pacing issues, and the cameo didn't really work well for me. Even though Sayanora's dubbing was perfect for Lokah, here her own sound would've been way more apt for that quikiness. Even Fahad's performance felt a little bit uneven. But all those were not a huge issue for me when the rest of the movie really worked for me. The quirky humour truly worked for me, especially whenever Lal and Suresh Krishna were present. Then the way this movie approached mental health in a kind of abstract way made me feel a bit confused at first, but the ending made it all work for me, even if I didn't completely understand it. There was also a specific moment that I loved and made me emotional about the reveal of how two characters were doing the same thing. I left the theatre with a big smile and couldn't believe that this was getting panned by everyone.