SAROJA

SaRoJa , the second movie from director Venkat Prabu after the 'Chennai-68' flick is an modest entertainer especially for the youth and middle age groups . The blend of comedy and crime is an infrequent genre in the Tamil cinema and the attempt by the director is welcome...

The actual plot begins with the four friends (played by Premji, Shiva, S.P Charan & Vaibhav ) starting casually from Chennai for a Cricket match at Hyderabad . Initially everything was normal and fun filled as any of us would leave for a trip with friends chit-chatting ,snacking etc. But soon things didnt move as planned as on the way they were caught in a traffic block caused by a tanker toppled down by an accident . The friends decided to take the short cut route and join the main road to Hyderabad . As they proceeded they lose their way and run into a gang of goons and their leader . The four friends ,of course, have no business there other than just escape from that place. Soon turn of events led Saroja who was kidnapped and trapped in the gang's camp also to join with them in their escape mission . and how they do it is rest of the story ..

Focus is more on the four friends' comraderie, tussle and their 'heroic' endeavours to escape from the gang than on the kidnap episode. The dialogues among the friends and their delivery were natural . Only the addressing each other 'sir.. sir' initially and 'da ..da' later here and there was not so acceptable. Premji, Shiva, S.P Charan and Vaibhav suited their roles and put up a decent show. Premji carried a big responsibility , the comedy part and did it good enough.

The escape sequence happening around the night/midnight dark and the seemingly ruthless villains added ample eerie . Everytime the tension builds up , Ganesh (Premji) comes out with his comedy dialogues and tickles us . Shiva and others too added to the humour . Seems the director never wanted the film to be serious at any point of time . Even in a tense climax , humour is sprinkled . No doubt , comedy is a big strength to the movie as an entertainer . But at times the same were irksome , when we are engrossed in a real thriller mood . Particularly the muscial background of some old movie songs to add comic effect could have been avoided as the plot moved towards the end.

Jayaram comes as a cop to rescue Saroja , his close friend Vishwanathan's (Prakash Raj) daughter, from the kidnap gang. Prakash Raj played only a subdued role .

Camera lightings were perfertly done and especially deserves appreciation in the second half where the story moves mostly in dark . Also hard work is obvious in many of the shots where scenes were projected from different angles . But it also needs mention that many times the camera movements & scene shifts were too quick that it makes the eye coordination with the scene uncomfortable . May be it is a camera technique to project a tense or a eerie situation . But the same too often is not apt .

The villain's love interest Kalyani (played by Nikita Thukral)added steam amidst thrill with the item number "kodana kodi..."

Music..Few songs linger. Also kudos to Yuvan for the background music , especially the beats at critical moments.

Could have saved some budget if the first 40 min was compressed to some 10-15 mins !

To conclude , the movie as mentioned in the beginning is a modest entertainer and fits well in a 'gud , watchable once ' types..