Film - Iraivi
Director - Karthik Subbaraj
Cast - SJ Surya, Vijay Sethupathi, Simha, KamaliniMukherjee,Pooja, A Radharavi, CheenuMohan.
The film tracks the journey of three men as they face various vicissitudes in their life, both personal and professional. Friendship and bonding, wrong and redemption, changing equations in relationships, deception and betrayal, all form part of the scenario. Subbaraj’s debut effort Pizza was a heist saga smartly camouflaged as a horror flick, while Jigarthanda was a delightful take on a rowdy’s attempt to reprise his real life on screen. But this time, Subbaraj has handled a totally-different genre based mainly on human relationship.
While the first half has been crafted with sensibility and sensitivity befitting his acumen, the second half unfortunately leaves much to be desired. The director’s earlier films had never seemed so un-enduringly long. But this film at about 160 minutes of running time is a tad too discomforting and dragging. Through all the highs and lows of the script, it’s S J Surya who rocks. It’s a great comeback role for the director-actor essaying Arul, a frustrated film director, on a self- destructive mode with his drinking binge. Subbaraj has exploited the hitherto-unseen facets of his performance. S J a revelation here, easily overshadows all other performances with his brilliant take on his character. Though the roles are well fleshed-out in the earlier part, some of the relationships are never quite clear. Like the reason for Michael’s extreme devotion to Arul’s family is left to conjecture. Sethupathi, a consummate actor, does his best in the role of Michael. But towards the latter part, with the character’s antics not jelling, the performance too just folds up.
There are a few heists planned and executed, but sans thrill or suspense. And probably if the director had concentrated on it and revolved his characters around it in the second half, the film could have turned out to be interesting. The novelty in the scripting and the freshness in the taking ensured an interesting first half.
Appreciable is editor Vivek Harshan’s slick cutting, shifting from one character to another, stringing the various situations together in an interesting flow. It’s in the second half that the screenplay takes a nosedive never to recover. The director seems to be at a loss on how to move his story forward here, the narration losing interest and momentum. Distracting one is a couple of songs forcibly pushed in. The twist in the plot is the weakest link and seems to be added just for the sake of it. For it neither jells with the flow nor is it convincing.
The Kerala episode seems a misfit. The director vainly ries to throw in some justification for the acts of the characters. But it just does not work. Subbaraj’s women characters are not very inspiring either. A much- anticipated film from Subbaraj, Iraivi disappoints.