NAAI SEKAR MOVIE REVIEW CLICK TO RATE THE MOVIE

Naai Sekar is a film written and directed by Kishore Rajkumar, and produced by Kalpathi S Aghoram, Kalpathi S Ganesh and Kalpathi S Suresh under the banner AGS Entertainment. The film has Sathish and Pavithra Lakshmi in the lead roles while Mirchi Shiva has given the voice over for the pet dog. Actors KPY Bala, George Maryan, Shankar Ganesh, Sriman, Manobala and others play supporting roles. It has music by Ajesh and cinematography by Praveen Balu.

Sekar (Sathish) is an IT employee who doesn't like his job much. His neighbour (George Maryan) is a scientist who is hell bent on proving that it is possible to alter the DNA of humans and animals, thereby making humans have characteristics of animals. While the result of his experiment goes unexpected, one day a dog named Padayappa bites Sekar and that ends up in their characteristics getting swapped. What happens next and how they get back to their original selves forms the rest of the plot.

Naai Sekar starts off with a disclaimer that says "films don't need logic, and fantasy films definitely do not need logic. This is a fantasy comedy film". Once this disclaimer is given we expect a few scenes where cinematic liberties are taken and we can ignore logic, but for most of its runtime, the film lacks any realism within its own universe. This is not about how a man can get the traits of a dog, but about scenes where a dog can steal a car and drive it effortlessly.

Now we would not bother questioning the logic had the comedy scenes in the film been consistently funny. Instead we get one outrageously funny sequence followed by a severe drought for humour. And a handful minutes later you get one more funny sequence and the cycle keeps repeating. Better consistency would have made us forget the flaws while laughing our hearts out.

The premise of the film is certainly interesting and a lot could have been built upon that. What writer-director Kishore Rajkumar does is, he lists down the traits that a dog has, and then writes one humorous scene for each trait. For instance, dogs love bones. So there's a scene involving Sathish jumping into a huge dustbin outside his IT office to eat a few chicken bones. Doing this isn't wrong, but this comes at the expense of coherence between scenes. The film feels like a bunch of interesting scenes put together but less satisfying as a complete product.

Another issue that the film faces is that if the joke doesn't land, the film has the opposite effect on you. You start feeling sympathetic towards Sathish's character which is exactly what the film doesn't want you to do. Sathish has put in a lot of effort to imitate the mannerisms of a dog and Mirchi Shiva, who has lent his voice to Padayappa, the dog deserves special praise. The rest of the characters don't offer much to the story and their impact is also less. 

Technically, the visuals are okay to the theme, there is a sense of urgency conveyed in the visuals while the film behaves contrary to it, having a lot of extra scenes that could have been trimmed to reduce the run time. A couple of songs by Ajesh are peppy, with the Edakku Modakku song standing out. The song is further engaging because of Sathish's dance which was top class. The background score and editing are functional and give the film the basic support it requires.

Overall, the film tags itself a fantasy comedy and we wish it had done more justice to the comedy part, especially with someone like Sathish in front of the camera. While a lot of jokes don't land the way intended, this film might end up as the kids' favourite out of all releases for Pongal, mainly because of the fantasy element. Barring the unique role switch between the dog and the human, and a few funny scenes, Naai Sekar could have been a lot better.

NAAI SEKAR VIDEO REVIEW