A Venkat Prabhu Fun Ride
Only a Venkat Prabhu film can guarantee a fun ride like this. An absolute guilty pleasure. I’m not saying this to demean the film because it was a sincere attempt, but nevertheless a great guilty pleasure. Thankfully the film doesn’t go to ‘Tenet’ mode and keeps its food grounded with the fun factor more than anything else. With enough number of puns and funs, the movie not only thrills you but keeps you engaged till the end. It’s like one of the rides in the theme park which gives you an unexpected satisfaction.
The movie begins with a usual big hero gimmick but it can be easy overlooked as it was not irritating. The first twenty minutes of Venkat Prabhu’s films would always be the worst, if it doesn’t pick up after that, it means that it’s a debacle. But movies like ‘Saroja’ and ‘Maanaadu’ pick up post that and give enough satisfaction. So the flight scene, a mandatory glass break, a needless song etc. bores you out, but by now everyone would have got used to Venkat Prabhu’s style of filmmaking so they’d have been okay. The films tension starts as soon as S. J. Surya gets introduced and consequent death/deaths.
We get to know about his reliving post the first death and movie was well shot for those sequences, with these many people. It’s not a movie to knit pick on the missing details but something we’ve to just go with the flow and enjoy. So it was a fairly enjoyable ride. Wish Kalyani Priyadarshan had got some more role rather than just being a dumb heroine. Wonder how if she does the same in Malayalam movie, it works but in Tamil movie it feels dumb. Others were just irritating characters with just no value. The whole film was just a faceoff between S J Suryah and Simbu.
Abdul Khaliq (Silambarasan) is an NRI returning from Dubai for a friend’s marriage. In fact to marry off a friend by abducting the girl for it, but a turn of events makes him realize that he has some bigger purpose and continues reliving the same day. The logic was silly but it’s good that they didn’t delve deep into that except for a short explanation. The whole Hindu-Muslim thing too was absurd and needless. Wish it didn’t try to be of any bigger purpose than it really was. But anyways if we dig deep, it’s our mistake, these needs to be dealt at surface level and washed off. Then you’ll get an enjoyable ride.
Generally in a film like this, after we get to know about the reason of time loop, it becomes redundant but the interval block where it was revealed that DCP V. Dhanushkodi (S. J. Suryah) too loops back in time, it becomes interesting. Kudos to Venkat Prabhu for keeping the audience in hook till the climax. Some tactics like dying many times during fight and coming back to escape from death was handled efficiently. But isn’t it how a normal human would have the death probability. Only because our heroes are super powerful they escape these many deaths naturally.
In all its one of the movies which was fun but could have been a lot more fun if watched with a crowd in theatre.
constantscribbles 