90 ML movie review: Oviya-starrer has many fun moments but is missing a strong storyline

The trailer of actress Oviya’s 90ML created quite a bit of buzz in Kollywood, following which it went viral and clocked 10 million plus views. Oviya is a little-known actress who shot to fame after she became a participant in Big Boss Tamil (Season 1) and earned a loyal fan base who came to be known as “Oviya army”.  90 ML is an adult comedy, with double meaning dialogues and steamy scenes, with its producers aggressively promoting it as an “A” film. The last two years has seen phenomenal rise in adult comedies in Kollywood. These films usually have a bleak story-line with random scenes which are padded with sexual innuendo and expletive one-liners. They’re mostly made on a shoe-string budget and work big at the box-office. Director Anita Udeep has made 90ML on similar lines with a marked difference: instead of boys in the lead, we have five girls having a ball – no holds barred.  The film is an adult comedy from women’s point of view. [caption id=“attachment_6178381” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  A still from the film.[/caption] The film opens with Thamarai (Bommu Lakshmi) along with her husband, who is a local rowdy visiting a rehab centre to consult a psychiatrist (Divyadarshini). The psychiatrist thinks initially the problem is with her husband, but Thamarai cuts her shot and says she has a drinking problem. In a flashback it is revealed that she got into the company of Rita (Oviya) who moved in to her apartment complex. The outspoken and daring Rita changes the lives of five women, who are having assorted problems in their lives. Rita becomes their mentor and encourages them to break free from the shackles of society. To be fair, some of the moments in the film are truly ‘howlarious’ and bring the house down. Special shout out to the scene just before interval when Rita and gang kidnap a couple who are just about to get married in a church. The audiences think that the kidnapping is to get custody of the groom, but one of the girls in the group rush and kiss the bride — her long time lover. In another scene, the gang goes ganja hunting and an old women in a slum hands over the weed to them, to which they say, “we don’t use plastic packaging.” STR aka Simbu has provided a peppy soundtrack for the film, and also makes a cameo appearance in the closing moments. 90 ML is a Patiala peg that tries to cash in on the craze around Oviya’s Big Boss image but looks artificial, as it tries to force-fit to feminism. 90ML would have been better if it had a stronger story line.