Movie: Love Channel

Director: R.N. Kumaresan
Cast: Eashwar, Monisha, Rajiv, Damu, R. Sunderrajan, V.S. Raghavan, Rajesh.

The film begins with the scene where the hero and his family members are introduced. The sequence is so shoddilytaken, that one dreads to think what would follow next. But the next part is not so bad, though the narrative style is very amateusrish and the screenplay has scenes that are cliched and situations that seemed to be forced into the narration. The saving grace are the scenes of the picturesque locations in Germany, where the story shifts to in the latter half, and which have been impressively captured by Rajarajan's camera.

Monisha who plays her first adult role, had given a good account of herself as a child artiste in films like 'Indira'. But here she looks inhibited in the romantic scenes, and not quite at ease in the song-dance routine. It seems to be a pre-mature debut as heroine for her. Eashwar, the France-based software engineer, dons the grease paint for the first time, has a faint resemblance to Kamal Hassan, and sails through his role without much of a problem.

The plot centres round the love between Ravi and Raji who meet in Germany and fall in love. But Ravi doesn't know that Raji was the same girl his family had chosen for him in India, and whom he would have married, if some misunderstanding hadn't cropped up between the two families. The earlier story goes this way. Ravi had consented to marry Raji, a girl he had never seen, but whom his family had approved of. The duo later do make some futile attempts to see each other. On the day of the engagement, as Raji eagerly waits to get her first look at her future husband, she learns to her disappointment that Ravi had to fly to Germany to take up his new job. At the engagement venue, a small misunderstanding snowballs into a major fight, and the engagement is called off, the two families parting as bitter enemies. Raji's grandpa arrives from Germany and takes Raji away with him, for a change of scene. In case you haven't guessed it, the grandpa lives right next door to Ravi. Ravi and Raji fall in love, each not knowing the identity of the other. Not until they return to India, and see the shocked look on the faces of their dear ones as they come out of the airport hand-in-hand. There is an attempt by the director to give the film a different ending. When Ravi hears of the entire happenings, initially, he refuses to marry Raji. But then matters are put in their proper perspective and the director opts for the usual happy ending.