HOTSPOT 2 MUCH Review - Passable stories that feel pointless together!
Ashwin Ram
Premise: Priya Bhavani Shankar narrates a series of script ideas to a producer, but has personal reasons in convincing him rather than becoming a filmmaker. The big reveal and the repercussions of her intention form the crux of the story.
Writing/ Direction: Follows the same pattern as the first part, by touching different social topics. Each one has its own strengths and weaknesses, but one common issue is that none of them carry a closure for us to be satisfied with the director's intention. Priya Bhavani Shankar’s angle is the one in reality, the other three are just her fictional stories. The first short preaches the stupidity of star worshipping, the subject is sure to instantly connect with those who are fanatics of a person. But except for MS Bhaskar’s monologue, nothing works out in this chapter. Right from the beginning, it tried to be something big but the quality was never up to the mark. Also, pulling the legs of Vijay and Ajith by tweaking the characters felt amateurish. Importantly, the entire portion had nothing to do with the actual story of the film. The second one is the only good episode, it speaks about the freedom of wearing clothes in an impressive manner. The storytelling is relatable here with easily accessible characters, and it’s got a nice commercial touch as well. Thambi Ramaiah’s payoff is especially a solid theatre-moment. The final topic discussed is the value of true love, it is certainly an important one, but narrated in a very dry manner. Except for a couple of funny twists at the end, this one was quite boring in the way it was packaged, despite the refreshing Sci-Fi tone, the flow ended up being uninteresting. Most of all the real conflict is the one created by Priya Bhavani Shankar, the necessity of pre-marital sex is tried to convey, but it seems to be touched just for a shock value and does not tend to be serious. Also, the entire film feels forced when it is tried so hard for all the stories to knit together. It could have been a simple anthology, why needlessly push to align the disjoint pieces for it to break further.
Performances: Except for the actor who played the producer, mostly the film carries good performances. Priya Bhavani Shankar in a simple appearance throughout held it well with her good dialogue delivery variations. Thambi Ramaiah and MS Bhaskar played their parts powerfully, which helped in reaching the important messages they were conveying. Despite a weak screenplay, Bhavani Sre and Ashwin Kumar made their mark strongly by understanding the complexity in their situations. New gal Sanjana Tiwari represented how glamour can be used to pin-point something sensible rather than just for skin show. Aaditya Baaskar and Rakshan were convincing in portraying the crazy fanboys of Vijay and Ajith. Vignesh Karthik, the director himself and Brigida Saga did not have any importance in the script, in fact it could have been a different story all together instead of trying to be a spiritual sequel.
Technicalities: Not much scope for songs, background score by Satish Raghunathan had some decent bits that were in sync with the complexity of the topics taken. No big variation between one episode to the other, still the overall visual quality looks fine. 2 hours runtime is a big advantage, but many loose ends, jump cuts and abrupt transitions which could have been fine tuned with a support at the edit table.
Verdict: Scenes involving Thambi Ramaiah and MS Bhaskar stand out, while the rest are underwhelming. Sensitive topics discussed in the form of short stories, but fails in the process of trying so hard to link them all as one single story.
HOTSPOT 2 MUCH - Passable stories that feel pointless together!
Rating - 2.5/ 5.