|
Cast:
| Satyaraj |
Seetha |
Raghu
Vannan |
| Santoshi |
Robert |
Delhi
Ganesh |
| Hanifa |
Director: Jawahar |
 When a director makes a sincere attempt to move away from the routine scenario and gives something different, and succeeds to a large extent too, he is to be commended. When a hero breaks away from his ‘youthful’ roles and mindless comedies, and plays a character appropriate to his age, and more particularly when he plays it with so much conviction and excellence, he is to be appreciated. Debutant director Jawahar and hero Satyaraj team together to give a thought-provoking entertainer centered round a Gandhian who is forced to resort to violence when he fails to get justice from the courts. The script is sensitively handled, the performances well co-ordinated, the director revealing a firm grip on the medium in his very first effort.
 A clerk in the district collector’s office, Maaran’s life centers round his loving wife, a son and daughter. Soft spoken, and a Gandhian to the hilt, Maaran does not let pass any slur on the Mahatma’s name. A staunch patriot, he had even named his son Swatantiram. A topper at the state level, the son gets admission to a medical college, where he is in for a rough time, ragged mercilessly by the sadistic Shivdas and his cronies. Matters come to a head when Swatantiram returns Shivdas’s humiliations with a tight slap, and defeats him in the college elections. Swatantiram pays for it with his life, Shivdas packing the corpse in a suitcase (shades of the real-life Naavarasu murder case here) and disposing it off. Shivdas hauled up for the murder, manages to get scot-free thanks to his influential father. The grieving Maaran takes it on himself to vindicate his son’s murder, tracing out the conspirators one by one, and meting out his own form of justice.
 In an otherwise taut, well-etched script, the cabaret dance and the scene of Maaran single-handedly taking on a rowdy gang seem like aberrations. It is a memorable performance from Satyaraj, the actor bringing out excellently the anguish of the father when his son is murdered, the fury when the culprits go scot-free, and the transformation of a passive man to one who is forced to use violence as his tool to achieve his end. Seetha is a little hesitant returning to action after a long gap. Fitting in perfectly into the role of the simple, small town guy, in a new ambience, is Raghu Vannan - son of actor Manivannan. Debutant Robert (brother of dancer Alphonsa) brings in a lot of style in his performance. Hanifa, as the CBI officer, no doubt will get his laughs, but the character being a crucial one, the director should have avoided slap-stick comedy and bestowed it with more seriousness. Delhi Ganesh &
Santoshi provide good support.
Malini Mannath
published on 29th September
2002
|
|
