Sorry state of affairs

Name : Sikindar
Cast : Suriya, Samantha and Vidyut Jamwal
Direction : N Lingusamy
Genre : Action
Rating : **
Like : Surya and Vidyut Jamwal
UnLike : 170 minutes running time

Out there we are never tired of telling the stories with inspiration from elsewhere. This time there is a grand release of a dubbed film. Good those large crowds are available and willing to watch a film though dubbed and willing to put their money beyond the regular named heroes of Tollywood. Welcome Suriya to the acceptable zone of fandom outside Tamil Nadu. True, this is not the first time that the matinee idol of Tamil cinema is tasting success here. It is redeeming and hopeful.

What is the film about: Bro Krishna (Suriya) comes from Vizag to Mumbai in search of his missing brother Raju bhai, an underworld don who has gone missing after being involved in crime and violence. The response varies from fear to outright rejection. He moves from one person to another to find out the whereabouts of the missing brother. He meets Kareem bhai (Joe Mallori) and thus we have a flash back of Raju bhai and his criminal past. Raju and his very close friend Chandu (Vidyut Jamwal) rule the roost. Big bad guys like JK (Dalip Thahil) are made to eat the dust. Humbled dons are vengeful so the twosome is on the lookout for shootouts and killings like the normal for office files and sales targets. For us it is malls for them brawls. Krishna is taken around the city by the cab driver (Soori where contrived humour) as he is in search of missing bro. Interlacing the search are pieces of the biography of Raju the multi talented don who also has fallen in love with the police commissioner’s daughter Jeeva (Samantha). The battle lines are drawn when Imran bhai (Manoj Bajpai) another of the mafia don insults Chandu and Raju executes the avenging plan. What next?

Juxtapositioned with the killings of many including Murali Sharma, Chetan Hansraj, we have the duo- Raju and Samantha- romancing and dancing with gay abandon. Kill sing kill sing is the drill.

We lead to a climax which shows how evil wins over evil because the hero’s evil is more ethical than the villain’s evil. It is fearful to believe that the choice is now about the lesser evil.

What works: Surya and Vidyut Jamwal. There bonding is without too much dramatics and yet endearing. Even the Samantha-Suriya screen chemistry. Suriya continues his magic touch. Soon it could become predictable and one-dimensional. However, as of now it works. As before he does not invest too much in contrasting the styles of the twin roles he performs. The script, however, justifies the seeming lack of contrast between Krishna and Raju. He is the fulcrum of the film. He is in his element: nibble footed, stylised, with his well-toned body and sharp features. He pays equal attention to the dance and stunt scenes and romance: what more would the filmmaker want of the central character? Samantha does not have much to do but does add the required spice. Even the rest of the cast including the habitual ham Manoj Bajpai don’t work on your nerves.

What does not: The script? The force and punch is missing. Somewhere the filmmaker N Lingusamy fails to convert the cast enthusiasm to the sleek story that could have been told. A near three hour tale of just killings and shoot out, punctuated by romance and dance, manages to draw just a drool from the audience that wants its film short and coterminous with the large bucket of popcorn. Brahmandandam proves that he too can fail. The stunts fall flat in compare to the earlier Suriya outings that include ‘Ghajini’, and the ‘Singham’ franchise.

Most importantly it seems to work for the filmmaker. The long week-end is sure to get the filmmaker the money and the success seems a foregone conclusion. There is enough and more for the Suriya fan. For the rest it just another outing with an over feed of commercial masala.