Entertainment
‘Villain’: Actors outshine the material (Review)
By Subhash K. Jha
Film: “Villain”; Language: Malayalam; Director: Unnikrishnan; Cast: Mohanlal, Vishal Krishna and Manju Warrier; Rating: ***
The thing about Mohanlal is, he sees things that others can’t. And he makes us see things that other actors cannot. Last year, in the very watchable thriller “Oppam”, he played a blind man whose powers of perception far outstripped those blessed with eyesight.
Since “Oppam”, Mohanlal has done five other films. I missed four of them. But I am glad to catch up with the amazingly prolific and versatile actor in this thriller with balls and heart where he is a cop on the verge of retirement, yanked back to duty after a series of murders rocks the city.
This is not a novel premise to work a thriller around. Dozens of Hollywood suspense thrillers have its cop-protagonist reluctantly getting into the investigative mode just when they would like nothing better than to put up their feet in their living rooms with a bowl of popcorn and watch DVDs of old Clint Eastwood or Mohanlal flicks, depending which way your taste swings.
“Villain” works fine as long as it doesn’t begin to lean on Hollywood prototypes. The indigenous strain is well woven into the thriller. There is an element of inextinguishable anxiety in Mohanlal’s recent performances, a man calm on the surface only because the other option is so terrible it could induce a catastrophic emotional geostorm.
“Villain” builds on Mohanlal’s power to express rage and grief without letting go.
This time, he plays his cat-and-mouse game on a sleek chessboard where the pieces are laid out neatly, a little too neatly, with all the plot points and emotional tropes indicated to us from afar. We really don’t need to strain our intellect or tap into our literary resources, although William Shakespeare is casually brought up in a conversation.
For company, Mohanlal has Vishal Krishna, a remarkably engaging and intelligent actor who makes the bumpersticker wisdom of his rhetorical dialogues sound like lines borrowed from the latest episodes of “Everybody Loves Raymond”. I am not too sure if everybody would love Vishal Krishna’s Shaktivel, a smooth-talking doctor, and a portrait of moral ambivalence who stores some surprise that he lets out in the later portions of the plot.
This is a strong part for a co-star in a Mohanlal film and Vishal makes the best of it.
The female lead Manju Warrier has less to do. Don’t they always? Still, Warrier’s character kind of joins the dots, fills up the pauses and bridges the lacuna.
The director never lets his characters lose track of their place in the jigsaw. We really don’t need to look too closely for motives in this murder mystery. It’s all kind of worked out in advance and then allowed to continue building up as it moves forward to a climax that is not entirely unexpected.
“Villain” is not among the very best works of Mohanlal. But it is very handsomely mounted and shot. And it has a certain grip to its narrative. Although it thrusts at profundity amidst the bouts of homicidal assault are to be taken with a pinch of salt, it nonetheless exudes a distant sophistication in its storytelling.
–IANS
skj/rb/vd
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
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The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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