A still from Sattam Oru Iruttarai  | Critic's Rating: Cast: Thaman, Bindu Madhavi, Piaa Bajpai, Reemma, Radha Ravi, Suresh Direction: Sneha Britto Genre: Crime Duration: 2 hours 17 minutes Avg Readers Rating: |
Synopsis: Vijay ( Thaman) murders two gangsters but manages to confound the police on how he could have carried it out with watertight alibis. And he is planning to commit one more murder, despite his sister ACP Kousalya ( Reemma), who is handling the case, doggedly trying to get him convicted.
Movie Review: Debutant director Sneha Britto tries to adapt the premise of S A Chandrasekhar's 1981 hit for the present day and fails miserably with this appalling film that feels like a hotchpotch job. The main reason for this failure is the slapdash manner in which the characters are sketched, topped by slipshod performances from the entire cast. That the premise is a juicy tale of revenge makes the disappointment all the more glaring.
Given that the plot inherently offers enough drama (and melodrama), all that Sneha needed to have done is to flesh out the major characters, making us care about the protagonists and loathe the villains and shoot the scenes in a competent fashion. But the scenes here are actually badly written, ineptly shot and shoddily edited with the movie lacking coherence, both logically and visually. Consider the scene where Kousalya tries to outwit Vijay by secretly recording his confession. We are shown a camera recording their whole conversation from a particular angle, but when the recording gets played, we are shown shots from various angles!
Even Vijay's reason for going on this killing spree is hardly portrayed in a convincing fashion. Yes, he loved Jasmine (Piaa in a role that feels very similar to her character in Ko), but shouldn't this track — the emotional fulcrum of the whole film — tug at your heartstrings? Instead, what we get is an all-too convenient and terribly bland romance involving Vijay and Jasmine, who initially get off on the wrong note only to be brought together by "destiny". And there is another romantic track, set in the present, between Diya and Vijay, which seems to have been scripted only to give Bindu Madhavi a couple of songs to show off her glam quotient.
The villains too are hardly menacing. Suresh (of Panneer Pushpangal fame) is introduced with a build-up only to die quite readily in the very next scene. And Radha Ravi (who looks comical with his false beard) is the kind of 'international don' who is stupid enough to return to the country despite knowing well that Vijay is after him.
But the film's biggest failure lies in its social commentary. While the early films of SAC expressed the angst of the common man against injustice, here it never comes out. And when SAC (who appears as a jail warden who helps Vijay) speaks on the need to modernize the law in the climax, it is as droning as an ineffectual professor's lecture.
Movie Review: Debutant director Sneha Britto tries to adapt the premise of S A Chandrasekhar's 1981 hit for the present day and fails miserably with this appalling film that feels like a hotchpotch job. The main reason for this failure is the slapdash manner in which the characters are sketched, topped by slipshod performances from the entire cast. That the premise is a juicy tale of revenge makes the disappointment all the more glaring.
Given that the plot inherently offers enough drama (and melodrama), all that Sneha needed to have done is to flesh out the major characters, making us care about the protagonists and loathe the villains and shoot the scenes in a competent fashion. But the scenes here are actually badly written, ineptly shot and shoddily edited with the movie lacking coherence, both logically and visually. Consider the scene where Kousalya tries to outwit Vijay by secretly recording his confession. We are shown a camera recording their whole conversation from a particular angle, but when the recording gets played, we are shown shots from various angles!
Even Vijay's reason for going on this killing spree is hardly portrayed in a convincing fashion. Yes, he loved Jasmine (Piaa in a role that feels very similar to her character in Ko), but shouldn't this track — the emotional fulcrum of the whole film — tug at your heartstrings? Instead, what we get is an all-too convenient and terribly bland romance involving Vijay and Jasmine, who initially get off on the wrong note only to be brought together by "destiny". And there is another romantic track, set in the present, between Diya and Vijay, which seems to have been scripted only to give Bindu Madhavi a couple of songs to show off her glam quotient.
The villains too are hardly menacing. Suresh (of Panneer Pushpangal fame) is introduced with a build-up only to die quite readily in the very next scene. And Radha Ravi (who looks comical with his false beard) is the kind of 'international don' who is stupid enough to return to the country despite knowing well that Vijay is after him.
But the film's biggest failure lies in its social commentary. While the early films of SAC expressed the angst of the common man against injustice, here it never comes out. And when SAC (who appears as a jail warden who helps Vijay) speaks on the need to modernize the law in the climax, it is as droning as an ineffectual professor's lecture.
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