Review for COFFEE WITH KADHAL:
(REVIEW BY ARUNJYOTHI R)
•Language: TAMIL
•Duration: 02 Hours 27 Minutes.
•Genre: Romantic Comedy Drama.
- POSITIVES:
1: GOOD SONGS
2: DECENT CINEMATOGRAPHY
3: DANCE
- NEGATIVES:
1: POOR DIRECTION
2: OUTDATED STORY
3: WORST SCREENPLAY
4: BAD COMEDIES
5: UNSATISFYING CLIMAX
6: PERFORMANCE OF ACTORS
7: CLICHE SCENES
8: BACKGROUND SCORE
•ONE WORD: A boring flick of cringes and cliches.
•STORY IDEA:
The story of ‘Coffee with Kadhal’ revolves around three brothers Saravanan (Jiiva), Kathir (Jai) and Ravi (Srikanth). Three of them live with their sister Varshini (DD), and with their parents. Abhi is the childhood friend of Saravanan and Abi loves him very much but unfortunately, Saravanan will not realize Abhi’s Love. Both their elder sister and brother are also going through a tough stage because they are also facing some problems in their relationship. Soon Kathir and Saravanan will get engaged to the person they don’t love. The rest of the story is all about the various problems in their relationship and how they try to overcome them.
•ANALYSIS OF THE DIRECTION, STORY, SCREENPLAY AND DIALOGUES:
Coffee with Kadhal is directed and written by Sundar C. The screenplay for the film is written by Naru Narayanan and A. Mahaakerthi and K. Selva Bharathy writes the dialogues for the film. Khushbu, A. C. S. Arun Kumar and A. C. Shanmugam are the producers of the film. The movie comes under the production companies of Avni Cinemax and Benzz Media (P) Ltd. and the film is distributed by Red Giant Movies. With a running time of 02 Hours and 27 minutes, the film is now running in theatres with a censor certificate of U/A.
The movies of Sundar C always follow the same commercial pattern and they will be crammed with hero-heroine love, family sentiments, brother-sister sentiments, comedies, actions, many songs and at last a happy ending. The recent movies of Sundar C are the best examples and unfortunately ‘Coffee with Kadhal’ also falls under this category. Honestly speaking I didn’t like the film, it was poorly executed, and the tedious writing of the script and the outdated scenes had given me a boring theatre experience. From the very beginning till the end the movie struggles to find its pace, every scene in the film was cringe and it kept on repeating. The film had a kind of unbaked story, the situations and the occurrences were like torture and it was testing my patience. The screenplay was also extremely weak, the scenes and the happenings in the plot haven’t made any kind of impact. Sadly the making was also following the same track, Sundar C had tried to make a comedy romantic film but unfortunately, his execution fell flat.
The first upsetting part of ‘Coffee with Kadhal’ is its storyline. It’s completely predictable, what is going to happen next can be easily apprehended so this predictability was making the viewing boring. The plot was having unexpected occurrences but nothing felt surprising. The twist and turns that the writers had made looked ridiculous, it was not at all having a proper continuity for the upcoming events. The storyline of the film was puzzling with tons of cliches and it was unbearable to watch. The brother’s sentiments, the sister’s love, extramarital affairs, how the hero falls in love with the heroines, misunderstandings, breakups and unwanted songs were brilliantly added to test the patience. To be frank, I was getting angry and when I was watching the movie, I wondered where the writers got the courage to write such a pathetic script. The basic storyline of ‘Coffee with Kadhal’ is outdated and it was also recreated with a half-baked screenplay. So it’s sad to say that the story of the film did not have the components to draw my attention and it was like a festival of cringes.
The screenplay was miserable, and the screenplay writings of Naru Narayanan and A. Mahaakerthi were unconvincing and less engaging. The way they produced the screenplay for the film looks so weak, with over-dramatic scenes and melodramatic sentiments the entire writing glanced like a script of television serials. The incidents in the screenplay were written out sloppily therefore the scenes looked amateurish. The characters in the film were not having depth, the writers had brought plenty of characters and ninety percent of them were carelessly written out. There was no proper emotion, the sentiments haven’t worked out and the romance between the characters was utterly disappointing. The only single thing I liked was the sister-brother relationship scenes, it was not that great but when compared with other scenes, it was having a minimum standard. The most depressing part of this film is its climax because till the end the movie is fully loaded with several scenes of unexpected occurrences. Lots of misunderstandings will happen between the central characters and unfavourable decisions will be made. So till the climax, the director and writers maintain these patterns, but in the end, how the characters solve this confusion will make you irritated. It is because how they get back into their relationship looked funny, and no solid justifying reasons were given. It was not at all fitting the situation and the scenes looked stupid. The tail end has a surprising guest role but the scenes were badly executed. So the overall screenplay was a complete letdown, the comedies didn’t evoke laughs, the sentiments failed to create an impact and the romance never had a feel.
The direction of Sundar C. was unimpressive because he followed the same style as his previous films. The adding of unwanted songs, making the heroine look sexier in songs, purposefully adding cringe family sentimental scenes and a happy ending without any logic and connection were shamelessly brought back again by Sundar C to ‘Coffee with Kaadhal’. Due to the poor execution, the movie was boring and I felt the overall duration was extended unwantedly. Also, there was a lag in between and the placing of songs was also not the right place. Sundar C. had followed an outdated making style and it was seen in plenty. Usually, Sundar C’s films always have many actresses and this film needed many heroines but the budget had to be brought in for many heroines. Notably, the producer of this film is none other than director Sundar C’s wife Khushbu. So, with the help of Bigg Boss the makers had exported many female contestants for the various roles and it had reduced the budget of the film, Sundar C’s brilliant plan. If this clever effort had been put into the script, the film would have been at least watchable.
•PERFORMANCE OF ACTORS:
The movie had a huge star casting which includes Jiiva, Jai, Srikanth, Malavika Sharma, Amritha Iyer, Raiza Wilson, Aishwarya Dutta, Samyuktha Shanmuganathan, Dhivyadharshini, Redin Kingsley, Yogi Babu, Pratap Pothen and many more. The performance of the actors was not that great, especially the acting of the supporting actors. The ladies from the Bigg Boss program looked gorgeous but the acting was mediocre. Raiza Wilson, Aishwarya Dutta and Samyuktha Shanmuganathan had good supporting roles and they tried to perform but the overall acting never looked natural. The expressions in the crucial scenes looked average, and could have been better. The performance of Jiiva, Jai and Dhivyadharshini was convincing, three of them shared great chemistry. The acting looked authentic and the emotional scenes were also matching for the situations. Malavika Sharma and Amritha Iyer looked gorgeous, their dance moves were great but their acting was disappointing. Their emotional sequences were awful and the dialogue delivery didn’t have the right timing. Yogi Babu and Redin Kingsley’s jokes were poor, the comedy scenes were badly written so the performance doesn’t impress me and Pratap Pothen as the father did justice to his role.
•MUSIC & TECHNICAL ASPECTS:
The musical composition for the film is tuned by the hitmaker Yuvan Shankar Raja and it includes the background score also. The soundtrack consisted of four songs and the songs were pretty good. The track “Thiyagi Boys” sung by Yuvan Shankar Raja and Hiphop Tamizha was the one I liked the most. The visuals had good dance choreography and the singing style and the beats of the song evoked a party mood. The remix of “Rum Bum Bum” was also nice, the vocals of Yuvan Shankar Raja, S. P. Balasubramaniyam and K. S. Chithra was wonderful. The nostalgic feel was there and the dance and visuals of the song were amazing. The rest of the songs were also lovely except the song “Baby Gurl”, the style of the song and the rap rhythm did not satisfy me. The background score was disappointing, the BGM did not rise to the level of Yuvan. The background score in comedy scenes was horrible, it didn’t match and also the emotional scenes were also lacking with some effective background score. The cinematography by E. Krishnasamy was decent, and the visuals of Ooty looked pleasing. The closeup frames were rightly undertaken because the emotional scenes of the main actors were exhibiting their acting skills. Some of the expressions of Dhivyadharshini were captured elegantly by the cinematographer. The dance moves in the film by the main actors were also effectively shot and the wide angle frames had showcased the natural beauty of Ooty. The editing of Fenny Oliver was fair, and the transition of scenes had the right flow but he should have trimmed some scenes for a better viewing because some scenes were unwanted and it made a lag. The dance choreographers had done the best job, and the dance moves of the actresses looked stylish.
•CONCLUSION:
So overall to conclude, the film ‘Coffee with Kadhal’ was utterly disappointing because of the poor story and script. The direction of Sundar C. was also unbearable, his making style was not having the strength to give an engaging theatre experience. The movie was boring, felt lag in many parts and the movie was loaded with tons of cringe scenes. There were no emotions in the film and the atrocities of the makers in the name of comedies made me irritated. Therefore, I won’t recommend this soulless film to anyone, better stay away from this disaster and save your valuable time and money.
•VERDICT: FLOP AND WATCH IT AT YOUR OWN RISK.
•RATING: 1/5
A Review by ARUNJYOTHI. R
