Sindhubaadh Movie Review
Production: K Productions, Vansan Movies Cast: Anjali, Vijay Sethupathi Direction: Arun Kumar Screenplay: Arun Kumar Story: Arun Kumar Music: Yuvan Shankar Raja Background score: Yuvan Shankar Raja Cinematography: Vijay Kartik Kannan Dialogues: Arun Kumar Editing: Ruben
Sindhubaadh, Vijay Sethupathi plays a role that is closer to that of a mass hero, but stops just short of being one. His Thiru is a thief who picks pockets and steals from the affluent, with help from his protégé Super (Surya Vijay Sethupathi, who makes a confident debut in an enjoyable role of a sidekick). He is a little hard of hearing, a quirk that Arun Kumar employs to good comic effect. The scenes between Thiru and Super are easily the film’s highlight, with their easy-going camaraderie endearing us to these characters. Their scenes with George Maryan, who plays Thiru’s uncle, bring a chuckle, especially the stories that they tell him as the other’s past.
A chance encounter with Venba (Anjali), a contract labourer in Malaysia, who had come to her native on leave, makes Thiru fall in love with her. He starts wooing her, and seeing that he is good at heart, she starts reciprocating much against the wishes of her family. But soon, she leaves for Malaysia, and the next time Thiru hears her, she is pleading with him to come and rescue her from Thailand. And so, with Super tagging along, he goes to Thailand, but earns the wrath of Ling (Linga), a dreaded gangster.
The first half of Sindhubaadh is easily its finest, bearing the stamp of Arun Kumar, who fills it with enjoyable humour, cutesy romance and Vijay Sethupathi-isms. The scene transitions are smooth, Yuvan Shankar Raja’s songs foot-tapping and Vijay Kartik Kannan’s painterly visuals appealing.
But the film somewhat stumbles in the second half, after Thiru faces off against Ling. The problem is that despite the build up to his character, Ling doesn’t come across as a powerful antagonist. We get one too many scenes of Thiru and Super evading Ling’s endless henchmen that things get tiresome after a point. Arun Kumar also stretches plausibility after a point. An exposition involving the operations of the skin trade syndicate also lacks the finesse that we see elsewhere in the craft.
One of the redeeming elements of the film is the cinematography by Vijay Kartik Kannan. The play with lights inside a specific warehouse is fantastic. Those sequences are well supported by incredible production design. Yuvan Shankar Raja’s background score works well in parts and the songs are pictured with montages that push the story forward. There is a certain disconnect between the two halves, and the second half comes across as convenient and artificial.
The film creates a conflict but resolves it within no time, so we don’t really invest in the plot. The action sequences that are plenty in number in the second half, could have been better choreographed. They lack creativity barring some scenes. For instance, Thiru and Super are involved in a chase sequence and are stuck on a terrace. The properties used to save Super are clever, but the very next moment, the film takes the lazy, cliched route to help Thiru escape the location. This is also the problem with Sindhubaadh on the whole. It has a few clever moments, a few moments that had the potential to be clever, and a lot of moments lazily written. Sindhubaadh is a reference to the popular fictional character Sindbad, who went on seven adventurous voyages. Even Thiru and Surya travel from one country to another to save his wife, Venba. But if only the adventures and dangers looked real, we could have better connected to the film.
