SAAMY SQUARE MOVIE REVIEW CLICK TO RATE THE MOVIE

Saamy (2003) was about an honest, unorthodox cop who wages a war against a crime boss. After a gap of 15 years, we now have a sequel to this action entertainer. Will this just be another episode in Saamy’s life or will it have more than that? Read ahead to find out.

A lot has changed in the course of 15 years but Vikram still looks unblemished and pretty much the same. His mannerisms add so much of originality to the role of a police officer. The first question that comes to our mind is whether Hari is trying to capitalise on the franchise-power of the title or does Saamy Square really have a strong storyline to justify the director’s need to do a sequel after 15 years?

Talking about our hero Vikram, his loud, free-flowing, and overpowering acting is praise-worthy and the mass sequences are just the platform for him to excel. It is Vikram’s strong screen presence that provides the intensity to the story. As usual, he delivers his best, earnestly. Hari is known for engaging the audience with elemental features in the screenplay throughout his career. However, in Saamy Square, he fails to take the story forward with the usual vigour he is known for, in the first half. A slow-folk number during the early phase of the movie didn’t help the pace one bit.

With a lot of time spent on establishing the foreground of the story to connect with the first part, the pace of the film increases only during the pre-interval block. Saamy Square is way different from the earlier episode, be it the treatment or the characters involved. This flick is way louder and less slick. A lot of scenes like riot scenes, caste issues, ransom demands followed by chase scene, mass arrest scene and railway station fight, remind us of Hari's previous flicks.

Keerthy Suresh does enlighten the screen now and then. But how many times are we as Tamil cinema fans going to see the heroine fall immediately in love after watching the hero fight and save them? Bobby Simha as the baddie looks menacing. He is an interesting addition and more of him might have given an overall edge to the film. He serves the purpose with nothing much to complain.

Aishwarya Rajesh replaces Trisha in the Saamy franchise and she tries her best to fit in. Unfortunately, we struggle to connect with the character. Her Brahmin slang could have been tweaked a little as it sounded a bit artificial. If Soori’s duty was to evoke laughter and bring in the lighter vein to the plot, sadly, it has not succeeded. He has a background score which goes like ‘maan maan Saktiman, man man superman,’ the lyrics say it all, you can imagine how odd it would suit a movie like Saamy.

An overdose of close up shots looked quite disturbing to watch. Hari’s usual DOP Priyan is missed. Editor of Hari’s film generally has a big role to play to crisply cut only the essential scenes from a huge lot. But one feels that few scenes in the first half, in particular, could have been edited to give a bigger impact. DSP tries to elevate the scenes with his thumping background score but what really works is the original Saamy theme which isn’t used much. A couple of duets or at least definitely one of them could have easily been done away with to make the engagement even better.

SAAMY SQUARE VIDEO REVIEW