Asuravadham Movie Review | Sasikumar, Nandita Swetha| Asuravadham Tamil Movie Review
Asuravadham Movie Review | Sasikumar, Nandita Swetha| Asuravadham
Tamil Movie Review
Asuravadham Synopsis: A
stranger keeps threatening a man, promising him that he will kill him after a
week. Who is the stranger and what is he after?
Asuravadham Review: Asuravadham
begins with a phone call. We see Samayan (Vasumitra) trying to convince his
irate father-in-law that he doesn’t cheat on his wife. He ends the call and
moves away to the adjacent room when the phone rings. He goes to pick it up,
but the call ends. He sees the number. An unknown number. He ignores it and
turns back, but the phone rings again! And the call ends before he can attend
it. This happens a few times, infuriating the man. He tries to call back, but
the person on the other end cuts the call without answering. Finally, the call
is answered and the voice on the other end threatens him saying that he will
fear for his life in the next few days and after a week, he will not be alive,
and then tells him to button up his shirt. A panic-stricken Samayan rushes out
of his house to see if he is being spied upon, but there is no one — apart from
a few familiar faces who are doing their job.
Right in this brief opening stretch,
Marudhupandian, who had previously directed Chennai Ungalai Anbudan Varaverkirathu,
a film that showcased potential, sets up the eerie tone of Asuravadham and
hooks us in. In the next few scenes, we learn that Samayan has a weakness for
women, and see the face of the caller who threatened him. This bearded man
(Sasikumar), whose name and back story we learn only in the pre-climax portion,
keeps turning up everywhere Samayan goes to (even to his house), and tries to
scare him off. Samayan ropes in a bunch of men to protect him, but the
sickle-wielding group is no match for the gun-toting stranger. After a point,
the former badly needs to know who his tormentor is.
And like him, throughout its first
half, Asuravadham keeps us guessing about who this guy is and why he is so
determined to finish Samayan off. For a while, the doggedness of this guy
reminds you of the protagonist of Badlapur, who was also hell-bent on seeking
revenge. But that film gave us the reason in its very first minutes. And unlike
its multi-layered antagonist, Samayan, here, is a little one-note. Right from
the first scene till the last, we mainly see him exclaiming, ‘Dei! Yaaru daa
nee?’ Even his accomplices, like his friend (Rajasimman) and a cop (Srijith Ravi)
are written the same way.
Also, there, the protagonist was so
consumed by revenge that he had become the very cold and calculating animal he
was trying to hunt down. Here, too, we get a guy who is obsessive about getting
his revenge, but he isn’t presented as a damaged soul. This man is a vigilante.
A hero. A man who has chosen the path of violence, but still retains his moral
values. Take the scene just before the interval. It is implied that this guy
might have raped Samayan’s wife (Sheela Rajkumar), but we know deep down that
he wouldn’t have done so, and our suspicion is proved true some time later. Or
the one we get a few minutes later where we see him take care of his wife
(Nandita Swetha, in a sort-of extended cameo) in a mental asylum.
You begin to sense that Marudhupandian
only wants to tell us a vigilante story and this is where Asuravadham begins to
feel like a lesser film that what it initially promises. Perhaps it also has
got to do with the fact that it is Sasikumar who is playing the lead. By the
time the film gives us the mandatory flashback, you realise that of all the
interesting paths that his juicy initial portions offered to take his story
into, the director has chosen the most conventional and convenient one. Despite
the horrific backstory, Marudhupandian’s approach — filling the second half
with empty heroism and reliable but routine melodrama — lessens the overall
impact of the film.
If the film finally feels a little
underwhelming, it is only because the initial portions are terrific. The mood
resembles that of a horror film, with the horror that is lurking in the shadows
is the man’s past. And SR Kathir’s superb cinematography mirrors this lurking
danger — the frames are filled with shadows and the camera angles suggest the
existence of someone just next to the frame. The grungy score by Govind, too,
maintains this suspenseful mood for a while, though, in the second half, the
music becomes a tool to amp up the heroism and the melodrama. But even in the
latter portions, some scenes are impactful. We get to experience the crime that
set the protagonist on his vengeful path the same way he experienced it, and
this makes the horror all the more chilling. If only had the director gone with
this approach in the latter scenes, instead of turning the climax into yet
another bash-them-up, Asuravadham would have ended up transcending its
ambitions.
Watch More Exclusive Cinema News, Rasi
Palan, Trailers, Dubsmash Videos, Movie Reviews, Funny Videos, Celebrities
Interviews, Movie Press Meet, Film Audio Launch, Etc..,, on Pakkatv. Subscribe
us: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5J_IyeNr79wyNCP4TRCt4Q
Follow us:
Website: http://www.pakka.tv/
No comments:
Post a Comment