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Cast:
| Surya |
Shrutika |
Gayatri
Jairam |
| Vijaykumar |
Srividya |
Ilavarasu,
Vadivelu |
| Director:
Pushpavasakam |
 If a hero has to be depicted as macho, then he either has to be a terrorist or a rowdy. That’s what many of our film-makers seem to think, if recently released films are any indication. ‘SRI’ too has a protagonist, and has a gang accompanying him, as he strides with a certain gait round the place. A familiar scenario for those who’ve seen all those ‘rowdy’ films earlier.
The debutant director fails to be convincing in the build-up to the scenes of Sri forced to leave home and taking to violence. The activities of Sri and his gang also are quite ambiguous. It’s like the director has taken inspiration from earlier films, not quite sure what acts he could show the gang indulging in. The concluding scenes culminate in a court-room, the scenes making a mockery of the courtroom proceedings.
 Wealthy contractor Pasupathi (Ilavarasu) comes to the ‘agraharam’ to ask for the hand of Sri’s sister Gayatri for his son Sanjay who had fallen for the girl. A legitimate proposal brought in a decent formal way, one would have thought. But not Sri’s father, who for some unexplained reason showers abuse on Pasupathi and humiliates him, instead of declining politely. Sri who learns of the matter later goes one step ahead, rushes to Pasupathi’s house, and bashes up Sunjay and his
cronies. In the encounter that follows between Sri and the gang, Sanjay tries to intervene and save Sri, losing his life in the bargain. Pasupathi has his vendetta on the family, when he torches Gayatri in public, with the whole ‘agraharam’ watching passively as she burns to death.
 Sri’s father and the whole community hold Sri responsible for the state of affairs, and throw him out of the place. Time for Sri to have his own gang and take to violence, his father making it his life’s mission to lodge a complaint with the police, each time he catches his son make a wrong move. Finally, Sri is hauled up to court on his father’s complaint. And as the court-room proceedings are on, with the father and son standing on either side of the witness stand as accuser and accused, they suddenly go into an emotional outburst, patch up their differences, come out of the stands, and have an emotional re-union. And it’s all is well that ends well!
 Surya’s role is like an extension of the one in ‘Nandha’. The same look and the same demeanour. For a first-timer, Shrutika (grand-daughter of the late Thengai Srinivasan) is adequate. In her second film Gayatri Jairam has an apology of a role, has put on weight, her puffed-up face unsightly in close-up shots.
‘SRI’ looks like an extension of ‘Nandha' with a slight change in ambience. It’s like they had gone and shot a few more scenes for the earlier film!
Malini Mannath
published on 30th July 2002
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