Laabam Movie Review Rating: 3/5
Tamil (Theatres) Director: SP Jananathan Cast: Vijay Sethupathi, Shruti Haasan, Sai Dhanshika, Jagapathi Babu Certain films offer a tentative vibe ahead of their release. The trailer for Laabam had given a glimpse of an outright preach…
Laabam never answers these questions, remaining as it does in educational mode, with Pakkiri acting as our professor. I learned quite a bit, to be fair. I learned that you could create alcohol, paper and electricity out of sugarcane. I learned about the history of how the British snatched land. I learned about the types of electric poles and how much voltage they can generate. So yes, I learned quite a bit. But entertained, I was not.
In its desperate attempts to make sure you don’t find all the lecturing too tedious, it brings in a hilariously miscast Shruti Haasan (playing a character named Clara), who’s apparently a performer trying to make ends meet. You get a couple of so-so Imman songs. You get some strange double entendres in the name of comedy. Clara, for instance, keeps mentioning the Tamil word for ‘seed’ in one bizarre scene. Even before you can recover, you get more generic encouragement: “Uzhaippom, vetriyai kaanbom!”
Even Vijay Sethupathi barely gets going. For vast portions, he seems to be simply going through the motions—like I was through this film. There’s a scene in which he’s supposed to be fainting and I bought it as one in which he pretends to. There’s another scene, one in which he drinks and sings, “Manidhanenbavan dheivamaagalaam…” He winds it up by encouraging everyone around him to drink and says, “Vaanga dheivamaagalaam.” And… nothing. We simply move on to another seemingly incoherent scene. There’s also something about him being a butcher and something about meat and religion, but none of it really matters because they all don’t come together to tell you a story you care about. Composer Imman too seems fairly uninspired both with his score and the songs he has done for this film. As for Jagapathi Babu, all I remember about him in this film is that he plays a corporate villain who likes to have his mute women secretaries hand him colourful alcohol, so he can destress by awkwardly launching himself into his swimming pool.
Jananathan’s untimely death due to a cardiac arrest earlier this year sent shock waves through the Tamil industry. The National Award-winning director’s short filmography is very impressive. Laabam, though well-meaning, is far from his best.
