Yet another leaf out of DuraiSingam’s book that is nothing short of an adventurous game
Hari and Suriya’s Si 3, the third instalment in the Singam franchise lives upto its obvious expectations. If you were expecting the Hari’s trademark racy screenplay, intellectual ploys that will make you go gaga over the brilliance of the hero and high octane action sequences then you wont be surprised at all. Every bit of Hari elements are scattered in abundance throughout the film. Despite all the Hari elements and Suriya’s pitch perfect delivery of punch dialogs and acting skills, the usual masala magic that Hari weaves around in his movies effortlessly is missing. And at this point we are too afraid to expect the director to recreate the magic of the first instalment once again on the screen.
Our trust in Hari starts diminishing right from the beginning when he struggles to begin the movie. Of all the excellent kick starts he has given in his earlier movies, he resorts to talking about division of continents centuries ago to bring the link to the division of Andhra Pradesh and Telengana. No matter how innovative or brilliant his screen play is, his dialogues (other than the punch dialogues) have formed by itself a sort of continuity that are so evident.
All the memes that encircle Singam franchise prior to release would be narrowing down to punch dialogues making it look like that is the funniest part of Singam franchise. But Hari is a man who still manages to practise the knack of placing the ferocious dialogues at the right places. The dialogues seem justifiable given the pace of the movie. Suriya looks like he has trained so much that he could deliver his dialogues with much ease even in his sleep.
Hari’s touch of justifying every word uttered by the hero happens here too. “ondra tonne weight da ” dialogue lovers have a surprise in the theatres.
Action sequences form as both advantage and disadvantage to the movie. It’s a booster to help the screenplay race forward is a boon while the repetitive Durai Singam’s magic of overtaking the opponent and showing the real singam form graphically becomes the bane.
The graphical singam becomes so repetitive that they form the boo moments off the movie rather than being the wolf whistling moments. They come next in line for the audience to boo only after Shruti Haasan’s not so impressive songs.
Had these minuscule fault moments been avoided Si 3 would have created better magic than the first instalment of Singam itself. But Hari decides to resort himself to the typical Singam clichés and gets satisfied with the enough momentum it creates. Had the best masala moments been more memorable Si 3 too would have made a mark in the suriya’s filmography.
However Hari’s mind bending screenplay wins over the clichés and makes us sit through the entire 3 hours which is engaging enough to not make us peek into our watches or smartphones.
For the first fifteen minutes we were convinced that the new casting done for the additional characters has gone incredibly wrong. We see Robo Shankar as an inspector, Soori as a police constable and Singer Krish also plays another inspector. We thank Hari for not having separate comedy track for Robo Shankar while we are already bombarded with Soori’s scenes at the very odd timing.
Robo Shankar manages to break us into a smile in the one comic scene with both Soori and Krish, and that’s when we wished robo Shankar to have taken Soori’s place. Robo finds a couple of scenes to justify his presence while we couldn’t find one of a kind for Soori’s.
Falling in line with Soori’s scenes is Shruti Haasan’s. In such a fast paced screenplay that doesn’t even pause to celebrate Hero’s minor victories pauses for five minutes to show us the dream sequence of Shruti breaking a leg with Suriya. Songs were placed in the oddest of the places that make us feel we could have lived through without songs at all.
If we curse Hari for referencing the scenes from previous instalments to introduce the hero, we could celebrate him for creating one of the best masala moments in an airport using the reference to a concept from a movie in the singam franchise again. We have certain masala moments that we could celebrate for a lifetime but all such moments are spoilt by itself in the end that we don’t remember any of them by the time the movie ends.
Stylish villain not only has essayed the role with ease but also mouthed the dialogues in a more convincible way. Thanks to Hari for taking efforts to define his character too.
Thanks to Harris that his songs though looking so out of the line is convincing enough by the end. Anushka does what is expected out of her and she seems to be the only mature female character next to suriya in the entire franchise.