SATTAM ORU IRUTTARAI MOVIE REVIEW

Renowned director/producer S.A. Chandrasekar’s grand niece Sneha Britto takes her first step in cinema as a director with the remake of S.A.Chandrasekar’s widely successful film Sattam Oru Iruttarai. With S.A. Chandrasekar contributing to this project in the position of a creative head, the story has been adapted to suit with the present times.

The premise of 2012’s Sattam Oru Iruttarai (SOI) is in essence the same as the original. The story revolves around a young man on a mission to carry out his vengeance against a group of baddies who have caused him a personal loss. While the original film had the loss of family members, this one, as being advertised in the promos, is for the sake of love.

The film stars Taman who recently made his first on screen appearance in a film titled Aachariyangal. Unlike his first film, his role in SOI demands an all-round commercial performance such as action, comedy, romance, drama and dance. One must say that he’s fairly adequate. The intensity that he displayed in the flashback jail scene is an indicator of the young man’s acting skill but it was found wanting for more in other places. Reema Sen plays the role of a cop and displays the authority of a police officer and that of an older sibling quite well. The two heroines in the movie Bindhu Madhavi and Pia Bajpai have very little scope for performance but they make their presence felt with every given opportunity apart from being relegated as just eye candy. Bindhu especially displays good dancing skills in a couple of songs.

One of the key areas where the film shows deficiency is in character development. There are several characters in the film whose roles haven’t been etched out comprehensively. There are quite a few scenes where Taman is in the company of his friends, nearly 7-8 of them, out of which only 2-3 have anything to contribute. The others seemed to be just assigned to fill screen space. Erode Mahesh, stand-up comedian making his silver screen debut, is one of the friends who has the major role as the one providing comic-relief which turns out to be a bit of a hit and miss.

The encounters between Taman and Pia Bajpai post the interval present itself as being juvenile and it results in hampering the audience’s connection with their upcoming romance. The other problem that SOI faces is that, just as in the case of law itself, the film too has several logical loopholes. While the protagonist is shown to commit the perfect murder, it’s only at the expense of the police force’s nearsightedness, which may be convenient for the narrative but hard to comprehend in real life. Also, why are the police focused only on a confessional when there are other methods available to prove the guilty? These are elements that indicate that SOI is lost in time in terms of its concept.

C.J. Rajkumar’s camerawork is adept as he’s employed the handheld method to bring out the intensity of the scenes. He has also ensured that songs are picturized with the same color and vibe of Vijay Antony’s music.

Sneha Britto has many years ahead of her and should treat this as an opportunity that not many are provided with. Unfortunately for her SOI is a script that was successful during a period where family melodrama ruled the roost but now the audience has moved on to a different era, one that she should look to be a part of.