One of the revelations - and pleasant surprises - of Santosh Subramaniam is how much Jayam Ravi has honed his acting skills.

We were quite disappointed with Jayam Ravi’s unpolished performance in Something Something Unakkum Enakkum.

Suffice to say, Jayam Ravi is orders of magnitude better in Santosh Subramaniam, released on April 11/12 in the U.S.

If only, Jayam Ravi would improve his dancing skills now.

By and large, dancing in Tamil movies makes us want to lunge at the screen in frustration. It’s totally graceless, like a bunch of pigs jumping up and down. If you want to see some grace and style in dancing, watch some of Michael Jackson’s old dances, particularly for Billie Jean and you’ll realize what fine dancing is. Even Bollywood is not that good when it comes to dancing, maybe just a shade better than Kollywood.

And who the heck is the dance choreographer for Santosh Subramaniam. We’d like to know. The bozo has done a disservice to the movie and should consider sticking to choregoraphing funeral processions going forward. You know the kind common in many Tamil movies where a few wailing drunks beat their chests and lead the funeral procession.

Besides Jayam Ravi, Santosh Subramaniam - a remake of the successful Telugu film Bommarillu - features Genelia and Prakash Raj in key roles.

Santosh Subramaniam  is - no surprise here - yet another teenage love story.

The story itself is nothing to get excited about and is fairly boring in parts. Santosh Subramaniam (Jayam Ravi) is the eponymous hero of this movie. Prakash Raj plays his loving but controlling father, who micromanages his children’s lives.

A few days after Santosh’s engagement to a mouse of a girl is fixed by his father, Santosh meets and falls in love with a different girl Hassini (Genelia), a young and vivacious college student.

When Prakash Raj accidentally finds out about Santosh’s love affair, he is totally aghast because the date of his son’s wedding is drawing near.

At the first show of Santosh Subramaniam in Movie City Theater in Edison (New Jersey) on April 12, the young H1/L1 crowd would constantly lapse into chitchat, a sign that they were not completely engaged with the movie.

Prakash Raj is, as usual, a delight to watch on the screen. A versatile actor, Prakash Raj delivers the goods whether as the villain in Pokiri or the loving but controlling father in Santosh Subramaniam.

Genelia oozes life and spunk on the screen but in Santosh Subramaniam we felt she was not as much in her element and definitely not as effective as Jayam Ravi. She tended to overact often and seemed too childlike for our taste.

Also, much to our disappointment the final confrontation between Jayam Ravi and Prakash Raj was flat.

We liked the music in Santosh Subramaniam. Most of the songs in the movie are above average and sure to find favor with the audience. Our favorite were Adada Adada and Kadhaluku Kanngal Illai.

All in all, Santosh Subramaniam, while not a great movie by any stretch of imagination, is one of the better movies to come out of the Kollywood sewers.