August 16 1947 Review - An Unknown & Shocking Story Of Freedom Fight

Gautham Karthik, Pugazh and Revathy Sarma star in NS Ponkumar's directorial debut, August 16 1947. The pan-India craze is getting wider, and that's good. August 16 tries hard, and succeeds in achieving a decent amount of goodwill. This unknown story of a freedom fight is more about personal freedom, tyranny, and revenge than a country's issue. Maybe that's what people down south enjoy more, and that's necessary too because cinema can never stay away from entertainment. It's a bit outdated with the theories, but an okayish film as a whole, with the universal subject of freedom at its core. August 16 1947 is set over a period of 5 days (from August 12 to August 16) in a remote village known as Sengadu. A cruel British leader, Robert, is keeping every villager under his foot with the worst possible punishments you can imagine in your dreams. His tyranny forces people to take the lives of their own family members and sometimes their own lives too. His son, Jason, is even more cruel, with lust being his most irresistible addiction. Not just women, but even teenage girls are not safe from him. Param (Gautham Karthik), who works as a slave under him, is helping village women. Things get violent and ugly when Jason decides to fulfil his lust over Param's childhood sweetheart, Dipa (Revathy Sarma). At the same time, India gets freed from the British Empire, but Richard does not let the news reach the villagers of Sengadu. The rest of the story follows Param and the entire village as they stand neck-to-neck with Richard and his army.1947 August 16 is a shocking story that every Indian should know. It doesn't matter if it happens in a remote village in the south because freedom is a universal emotion, and in 1947 every Indian knew the importance of it. The screenplay of the film is very spicy, as there are so many scenes that remind you of old-school mass entertainers. The action, the romance, the emotions, and the drama get out of hand sometimes, and that's bad, but they don't become a headache. Predictable storylines are too common nowadays, so why only blame August 16 1947? We were done and dusted with these things four decades ago, but if that's what today's audiences want, then even writers can't be bashed for fulfilling audiences' demands. Still, I feel that a shocking and unique concept like "not knowing independence" deserved slightly better piece of writing.The performances are somewhat decent. Gautham Karthik looks fine as the protagonist, even though the writing lacks powerful moments and heroic graphics. The physical gesture should have been different since they had such a muscular villain, who does not act but just crushes everything he sees. Revathy Sarma is a typical heroine you'd see in any revenge drama, but here she goes through two different phases. The first one is pretty light, but the second one is dark, intense, and emotionally extravagant. Revathy seemed okay in both zones. Richard Asthon is deadly, Pugazh is terrible, and Jason Shah is strictly average. The supporting cast does nothing but scream, cry, shout, dance once in a while, and plead like beggars.The technical aspects of the film are below average. With the background score being loud and intolerable, the main music album is completely disregardable. The Hindi dubbing is at fault here, for dialogues and lyrics both. I would've liked the original version better than the dubbed one (with subtitles). What you expect from a film set in the pre-independence era is to create that era and stay true to it. August 16 1947 succeeds in doing both, with a few glitches here and there, of course. NS Ponkumar is coming out from under AR Murugadoss' hat, but he's not AR Murugadoss, right? It's okay for a debutant to stumble and get better in the future, as every film teaches something and everybody learns from mistakes. Hopefully, Ponkumar will improve too. We couldn't fight for freedom in the pre-Independence era, but the least we can do is see this film and feel the importance of this readymade (for our generation) freedom.