In his last few movies, Jeeva has shown an inclination for roles that offer some variety and avoid
the trappings of the usual Tamil cinema hero. Director Subramanyam Siva too, in his last movie
Thiruda Thirudi , presented a hero who was not larger-than-life
in a film that avoided many of the usual cliches. So it is disappointing that together, the two have
presented a film that makes all those mistakes that their previous films avoided.
Hari(Jeeva), the son of a retired school teacher(Nagesh), runs a bookstore in a crowded area. His
father buys a new shop for him to run his bookstore. But as he is ready to move in, a businessman
from Singapore arrives to claim that the shop is his. Hari soon realizes that the shop is indeed
the businessman's and tries to get to the bottom of things. With a little digging, he identifies the
real estate company, led by Namachivayam, behind the scam.
Like most movies that have a flimsy storyline, Pori takes a long time to get up to speed.
So we are initially forced to endure group dances, item numbers, fight sequences and the beginnings
of a romance as the director tries to pad the running time. All of these are awkwardly inserted
and so the movie proceeds in an episodic fashion as the director tries to insert all the elements
that would brand his movie as a masala flick. Some of these segments, like Jeeva's meetings
with Pooja and 'Delhi' Ganesh, are tolerable but others, like the first interview Pooja conducts,
are torturous.
The movie tackles a new subject in real estate scams but there's nothing new in the way it has
handled the subject. Once we shove aside the superficial details about the scam itself, it is
clear that the movie is about Jeeva going up against a man in power. The scam is just the means
to the end of pitting Jeeva against someone in power. Once this conflict is set up, the movie
follows the usual pattern of the villain taunting Jeeva and Jeeva hitting back through a mixture
of brain and brawn.
The movie makes a mockery of the court proceedings in the climax. It doesn't look like Jeeva even
has a lawyer and his arguments are simplistic. Some of the tricks he employs are silly and handled
amateurishly and after all the hullabaloo, it is completely cinematic when the villain sticks his
foot in his mouth in unbelievable fashion. Ofcourse, since a courtroom climax would be too tame for
a masala flick, we then get another routine, action-filled climax to close things off.
Jeeva doesn't damage his reputation much and continues to prove himself as a very natural actor.
His casual dialog delivery is a big reason for that though all the action sequences do their best
to destroy the realism. Pooja looks pretty but predictable, doesn't have much to do. Nagesh is solid
as usual and is a perfect fit for the role of the straightforward, simple teacher. Director Seeman
( Thambi ) makes his acting debut as the businessman from Singapore.
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