User Reviews

I had a chance to watch this movie twice. The first time, it was passable. However, by the end of the second iteration, I could pick a handful of scenes that I liked in this movie.

As a movie buff, it always pains when the actors/actresses that one likes make mistakes in their choices of movies to act for. Bogan is definitely a bad decision in my view by both Ravi and Swamy.

The idea is definitely a good one, of where a secret hidden by an ancient Rishi contains the path to supernatural powers and can make humans a touch about mortals. This idea had a lot of potential and could have really been taken places.

However, the execution of this idea is very poor. Here is a list of complaints.

1. The time wasted in developing the hashed love story between Vikram and Maha could have been used to better explain the magical powers, or to better answer the number of questions that were left unanswered. This love story was very rushed.

2. Either give an actress a meaningful role in a movie, or don't keep an actress at all. The habit of keeping a heroine in the movie only to serve as eye candy, distraction to the hero and a plot device at the end of the movie is bad, and I was not expecting this from a movie that had 3 actors from Thani Oruvan.

3. Bad choice of Hansika for the role of Maha. Her overacting finally caught up to her in this movie. Additionally, her voice is extremely annoying and the dubbing team is definitely the culprit for this one. They definitely could have removed a heroine from this movie and re-worked the script to have someone else be used as the bait by Aditya at the end of the movie.

4. The train of thought of the director in the movie seems as though the script was incomplete. Starts off with a hashed love story. Then gets to the point around halfway into it. Makes the tussle between the hero and the villain interesting. Then just runs out of ideas on how to finish the movie and gives up! The ending in this movie was terrible. It only served to provide a whole new list of plot holes than answer questions and bring the story to a logical conclusion! This is what was most disappointing about this movie.

5. The list of unanswered questions:

a. Vikram's dad left for Delhi because he couldn't handle the judgement from people. When did Aditya call him and ask him to come to the Commissioner's office?

b. What was Maha doing in the Commissioner's office? Why was she even there?

c. What about the case against Vikram's dad that he had robbed the bank? There was no evidence that proved Aditya did the crime. The CCTV still shows Vikram's dad doing the deed.

d. What happens to Vikram's cop friend who kills his other cop friend in the cafeteria when being possessed by Aditya? Is he ever proved to be innocent?

e. How in the world did someone who has a broken neck, broken fingers, broken hands survive all of it to get up at the end?

f. As "The Best Cop of the Year", after thinking he killed Aditya, Vikram should have kept the palm leaves as "evidence" as part of the case, which he could have used as proof of what Aditya did, and free his dad! But no, he chucks that important evidence into the sea. What sense did that make?

The above are just important threads of the story that should have been tied up by the end of the movie, but were not! I could even nitpick more by asking how Aditya managed to figure out the security pin on Vikram's iPhone. As a responsible cop, it should have been a difficult pin, but this again was just left hanging. We could say that Vikram didn't care about his own privacy and didn't put in a pin for his phone. But I think that's just bad writing.

The only saving grace of this movie was the chemistry between Jayam Ravi and Aravind Swamy. Their acting before and after the reversal of roles was great. This chemistry (and wonderful plot) was what made Thani Oruvan such a great movie. Their chemistry is the only reason this can even be considered as a 1 time watch.

Unfortunately, that chemistry was not used well this time, and maybe there will be more scrutiny on the part of both Ravi and Swamy before doing such roles.

The story is about body swapping. So people who expects logic in a fantasy concept, please avoid the movie. Jayam Ravi plays the role of a cop and Arvind Swamy plays the baddie. The support casts too have performed well. There are no comedians in the movie and no unnecessary romance scenes.

The movie has many heroes. The first one is the screenplay and editing. Even though some might criticize it isn't as crisp as other movies, please stop comparing.Fro this movie, this screenplay is apt. The director, as much as possible, hasn't overdone any aspect neither he has underplayed any. The editing has enhanced the screenplay by snipping the movie in a way to get the maximum impact.

The second hero is obviously Arvind Swamy. The man has style. At the age of 46, he still gives the younger heroes a run for their money. Arvind Swamy literally carries the whole movie on his shoulders. When he does the positive role or the negative, he does it to perfection.

The lead actors, Jayam Ravi and Hansika, have done a good job, but overshadowed by Arvind Swamy. Hansika's best performance in the movie is during the first fifteen minutes. Acted cute and likable. Jayam Ravi also has done a decent job both as a positive and negative character. The music is another good point of the movie. Songs are decent and the BGM rocks.

The only negative of the movie is the climax. It wasn't having the impact or well thought through as the whole movie was. The climax is a let down after a good movie. If a little bit thought would have given to the climax, movie would have been better.

So on a whole an entertaining movie which can be watched. Logic loopholes does exists but it is inevitable in a movie where body swapping is the basic concept.

Director Lakshman's Bogan is a partly enjoyable, partly unexciting thriller which thrives on its soul-swapping concept, a promising, not-so-oft explored premise in Tamil cinema.

The first half is owned by Arvind Swami, who once again proves his mettle as an ace performer. His smashing screen presence, inimitable swag and effortless nonchalance make him an absolute delight to watch. Jayam Ravi has churned out an earnest performance, but he's not able to be in the same league as Arvind Swami, who's definitely a class apart and carries an electrifying aura. Hansika, as usual, gets a toothless role and manages to do justice as much as she could.

The interval block surely sets the stage for the second half and Jayam Ravi's character. But, Lakshman loses his storytelling focus post interval and things go on the downside with uneventful, tiresome flow of sequences. Lakshman's slick movie-making is evident on screen, but the mundane screenplay in the second half lets the film down. Bogan could have been a great, gripping thriller but the tedious turn of events in the second half make one feel that Lakshman bit off a bit more than he could chew in his sophomore outing.