Madraskaaran Movie Review: Shane Nigam shining in sporadic portions doesn’t help connect emotionally to this unevenly written drama

Madraskaaran review: It follows Sathyamoorthy, a man from Chennai who returns to his hometown, Pudukottai, for a grand wedding to prove his success to the villagers. But an incident changes his life.

Madraskaaran

Madraskaaran Movie Story:

Sathyamoorthy, who has a livelihood in Chennai, returns to his native Pudukottai to have a lavish wedding with his girlfriend Meera (Niharika Konidela). It is solely because he wants to see the villagers witness his thriving life after his family had left the place due to struggles. However, a certain incident that happens on his wedding day, changes Sathyamoorthy’s fate, leading him to earn the wrath of local ruffian Singham (Kalaiyarasan).

Also read: Madraskaaran actor Shane Nigam Interview: Tamil industry has better work-life balance than Malayalam | EXCLUSIVE 

Madraskaaran Movie Review:

Sathyamoorthy may have been brought up in Chennai and found his love and livelihood there. But his wish to return to his hometown and have a grand wedding in a place that failed him is an empathising and bonanza of emotional explosion. Pudukottai may not have offered Sathya and his family all that they earned in Chennai, but it is that place where Sathya wants to badly prove how much he went up in life. It is humanly basic to want to taste happiness in a place that let you down, and Sathya’s emotions are justified on paper. But does Madraskaaran take enough effort to spend much time to establish these feelings? This is the commonly occurring problem throughout the two-hour runtime of the film, which carefully designs and stages event after event, that it emotionally cuts off shortly.

At the very beginning, we see Sathya head over heels in love with Meera and over the top happy about how everything is falling in place for his wedding. After his future father-in-law, who is not so interested in the wedding, agrees, his home is filled with doting relatives and laughter. He even gets to do a Yaro Yarodi sort of a wedding song, (not to forget an out-of-the-blue remixed Kadhal Sadugudu). We are made to believe that Sathya’s highest moment in his life is almost there. We may be with Sathya along with the screenplay, but not emotionally as we are neither shown how much Pudukottai let him down nor his emotional equation with his girlfriend who fails to understand the amount Sathya is stretched to make this wedding happen. But after a barrage of superficial settings, a single incident becomes detrimental in Sathya getting arrested in a way that turns his life topsy turvy. In comes Singham, who has already been rubbed on the wrong side by Sathya, and this ruffian-like character isn’t doing any good. A major problem with Madraskaaran is how it is far from showing emotional connect apart from Shane’s sporadic stretches of exceptional acting. But how much can only the performance save, when Sathya’s vulnerabilities are not explored enough? Adding on to this is even as Shane attempts to dub for himself for his Tamil debut, the believability of being a true-blue Tamilian hardly comes across in his accent.

Madraskaaran has a distinct and stark difference in how it chooses to tell the story before and after the interval. Everything happens quickly, from establishing Sathya’s background, his doting uncle Chellapandi (Karunas), and over-caring mother (Geetha Kailasam), to events that lead up to his highest moment until when the second half chooses to go with the same fast-paced narrative that turns to introduce villain after another in an inconsistent fashion. It wants to tie all the loophole cues it left in the first half, but when the audience have already made guesses, it becomes hard to convince. If Sathya’s life isn’t fully explored, we also get Singham who along with his pregnant wife Kalyani (Aishwarya Dutta) are waiting for the arrival of their child after six years of matrimony. As much as the first half leaves no gap to go one scene after the other, the same pace becomes a curse of the second half that barely makes you register where the real conflict origins.

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Madraskaaran seems to be impulsive as it wants to gain momentary pleasures in revealing twists, but when a film wants to emotionally connect, the drama becomes a sloppy affair. Right from the beginning, the audience is tipped off that something is off at various stages, but the film wants you to wait until the end, and when it becomes unworthy of the patience, Madraskaaran becomes tiresome.

Madraskaaran Movie Verdict:

Shane Nigam choosing to play a rooted Tamil character in his debut would have been more appreciable if the film too had chosen to stay grounded and simple. Even as the film has some emotional stretches to give him that space, an incoherent screenplay that doesn’t immerse you, makes Madraskaaran a letdown and wasted opportunity.

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