Returning to the screen after a hiatus, dance choreographer-turned-hero Harikumar plays Sathya, a rowdy, in Kadhal Agadhi. It’s about how an incident turns Sathya’s life upside down, taking its toll on him. Harikumar sports two looks here.
One is tall, lanky and presentable, when as a rowdy, he bashes up his rivals black and blue. The other is a total makeover, a bald-pated look, a man slightly imbalanced and suffering from amnesia.
The actor has essayed the transition from one to the other with fair competence. Blending action romance and family sentiment, the screenplay, however has too many sub-plots and backstories that intrude into the narration and distract.
The plot revolves round Sathya a rowdy, who at a point in life intends to give up his violent ways. It’s about how circumstances and his inadequacies make his life spiral to an unforeseen end. The film opens on a demented Sathya, who shackled by chains in a cell, violently tries to break away. Savitri, his wife (debutant Ayisha from the Malayalam screen) goes to see him and it is shown as a flashback.
We get to see Sathya and his gang lording over the vegetable market where he runs a shop; of his thawing for Savitri, who makes no bones about her admiration for him; of his life being saved by Aisha’s cousin Balu when he is assaulted by rival thug Pandi; of him taking on Pandi and the subsequent repercussion on his life.
Balu, who aspired to be a filmmaker, has his own backstory to tell, and it’s quite an insipid one. The director has tried to bring in variations by way of making the protagonist look different and has occasionally tried to move away from the beaten track.
But the script is too simple, both in screenplay and the narrative. Further, there are quite a few lines of double entendre weaved in.
It’s great that the debutant director has confined his storytelling to a tolerable 115 minutes. A passable action-centric entertainer, Kadhal Agadhi at the most a stepping stone for a debutant maker.