Bumpy ride all through

Cast : Dhanush, Keerthy Suresh, Thambi Ramaiah and Harish Uthaman
Direction : Prabhu Solomon
Genre : Action-romance
Plus points : The story idea
Minus points: Confusing narrative

One- film- a- year director Prabhu Solomon, whose characters are usually depicted as grounded, well fleshed out and earthy, attempts a combo of what he is good at and what he perceives as something novel. Interestingly carved out, the movie takes off at a good clip with Dhanush, essaying the role of a pantry car assistant living out his largely confined life with his colleagues, similarly boxed in by a crippling routine. The ambience is truly established here with its hierarchical compulsions and work pressures, a first of its kind in Indian cinema for sure.

‘Rail’ ( named ‘Thodari’ in Tamil) hence promises a good watch, as the proceedings turn interesting when the boys fight among themselves to be at the service of a leading heroine and her family, travelling by the train from Delhi to South India. The blue-eyed-boy of the pantry manager (a superb role for character artiste Thambi Ramaiah) that Dhanush is, he manages to bag the lucky chance and falls in love with the heroine’s touch up artiste, Keerthy Suresh, who has singing ambitions of her own.

Moving quite comfortably on parallel tracks of a blooming romance and a looming action block as the scenes roll out, the film gets into a muddle quite unexpectedly. Trouble arrives when a politician takes the train, accompanied by his NSG commandos, one of whom – Harish Uthaman- enters into a scrap with the hero. A competent actor and an upcoming one, Uthaman is let down badly by a high-strung characterisation and a typical adversarial role which impacts the thriller part of the film, which ends with the heroics of a humble chai wala.

Packaging his comic timing and acting potential rather efficiently, Dhanush works hard as does Keerthy Suresh, a classic model of poise and performance. Prabhu Solomon, who has often been guilty of letting his films end in a rushed, chaotic manner uses the same technique as the train is seen rushing at high speed towards its destination, out of control, with the Railway officials helpless in reining it in.

Taking a liberal swipe at the sensation-seeking media, low on facts and high on hype, the film runs it as a subterranean track all along which raises the intellectual level of the movie but does not add to its treatment. A tempered, realistic climax, even if tragic, which Solomon had visualised in a few earlier films of his could have made a haunting impact for his latest venture, a novel yet flawed production in the end.

K Naresh Kumar