Merry Christmas - Hindi / Tamil - 144 mins
With his previous movies (Johnny Gaddar, Badlapur, Andhadhun, Ek hasina thi among his best work) - Sriram Raghavan has shown that he is the auteur of the Slow burn thrillers - channeling his love for the 70/80s Hindi movie themes, dialogues, score and character references! Vijay Sethupathi (VJS)and Katrina Kaif - the most unlikely cinematic pairing that once can imagine! - interesting enough to drag me to the theatre to watch
The "It happens one the night of Christmas eve" in Bombay movie brings together VJS (Albert arokyasamy) and Kaif (Maria) from frame one and through the intermission - they are absolutely arresting on screen. They talk love, philosophy, drink, dance (that 3/4 minute long shot is nice chemistry and they barely touch each other!).
VJS , his goofy charms, use of his eyes and expressions brings back memories of 96. Actually nice to see him back in this mode after Jawan - while he was still ok one felt he was maybe trying too hard. Katrina surprises you with her dialogue , body language and holds her own and this is easily one of her best "acting" roles.
( Nice touch by the director in establishing their nativities (Tamil / Christian) Dialogue/dialects (of both) and smattering of english seamlessly works. They muse, stalk, talk, sing, dance the entire first half - while there is a simmering tension around the corner and you are invested!
The movie kicks into gear three post interval when the plot unravels - the host of the support cast arrives - Sanjay Kapur , Vinay Pathak , Pratima Kasmi make full use of their limited screen time to skew up the interest in proceedings. Tinu Anand has a two lovely scenes which bring the "yadhoom" moments. The last 20 percent when everything unfolds - the payoff is totally worth your patience! - In Badlapur - the tag line was "Do not miss the beginning" - here it is definitely "Do not miss the end" :)
The cinematography (mostly night) is very good, the songs play in the background are ok - The dialogue (as always once you are done with the movie so many red herrings that you have seen come back to mind)
In hindsight, you would think that the movie could have probably been a little tighter editing and perhaps a little more nifty writing could have made it a classic that Andhadhun . It is still a solid watch. I will definitely watch the Tamil version, which has a different cast and would definitely be nice to see how the dialogue has been tailored for the language.
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