August 16 1947

Torture, physical and mental, assumes varied forms in August 16, 1947 - both within the film's anything-goes fictional universe and on the audience in the theatre. The Tamil period drama written and directed by debutant N.S. Ponkumar and also released in Hindi, is a screechy and gratuitously gory action drama set in a remote village in Madras Presidency where news of India's freedom at midnight takes an entire day to reach. Hence the title. That is the closest that the pulpy film gets to anything that looks, feels or sounds logical.