‘Rathnam’ movie review: Hari attempts to reinvent himself but the Vishal-starrer remains outdated

Priya Bhavani Shankar and Vishal in a nonetheless from ‘Rathnam’
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Tamil masala movie-making has advanced a lot that even the thought of watching a Hari movie like Rathnam in 2024 appears fascinating. Here’s a filmmaker who refuses to let go of his signature model, or tweak his signature tropes past a degree, when there’s hardly any up to date trying something related. And name it a cut price for creating a mode, it’s simple for aesthetic particulars to cloud over why these tropes got here to be in the first place. In Hari’s case, he’s a filmmaker who strives to make an attractive masala motion movie, and in a profession spanning over twenty years, he’s but to make a boring movie; even a catastrophe like Saamy Square mockingly engages you with how weird it could possibly get.

Unfortunately in Rathnam, even when Hari is visibly giving his all to make a fascinating actioner to re-introduce his model, solely the intrigue in how he performs up his tropes this time hooks you up greater than the movie itself. And whereas some self-awareness leads to him adapting a few of his tropes to the sensibilities of the modern-day viewers, the concepts he performs round with nonetheless belong in the 2000s.

The very story that the movie chooses to inform appears archaic. In a city bordering Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, a rowdy named Panneerselvam (Samuthirakani) raises a younger teen named Rathnam as his personal after the latter saves his life from his enemy. In the current day, when Panneer turns into an MLA, he chooses the now grown-up Rathnam — Vishal as the quintessential sickle-wielding Hari hero — as his go-to man. Things take a flip when Rathnam saves a younger lady named Mallika (Priya Bhavani Shankar), an aspiring medical school scholar, from a gang of rowdies from Andhra. We quickly understand that Mallika’s father Vedha Nayagam (Jayaprakash) is embroiled in hassle as the nefarious land-grabbing moguls — Rayudu brothers; Beema Rayudu (Murali Sharma), Subba Rayudu (Hareesh Peradi) and Ragava Rayudu (Muthu Kumar) — are after his land.

Now, why does Rathnam go to such nice lengths for a stranger? At a time when a viewer may need even forgotten the interval when movies repeatedly used the thought of a doppelganger to serve up a twist, Hari shocks you. This is regardless of all the criticisms Saamy Square acquired for the same doppelganger thought. It’s an concept that’s so absurd to take into consideration, certainly, but the state of affairs during which it will get performed out is such that you just nearly begin giving in to what he attempts to do with it.

This is what I meant by the peculiarity in how Hari chooses to tweak a few of his tropes but chooses to proceed most others. Unlike any Hari movie, the hero will get a sober introduction shot, but it’s adopted by the typical battle sequence to present his machoness. There are 5 blood-curdling motion sequences — as well as to the barrage of violent motion movies we have now been getting — but that is additionally a movie with a gap music in a bar. The heroine performs an important function in the plot (like in Thaamirabharani or Venghai), and she as soon as once more falls for the hero for a weird motive. But for all that significance given in the plot, she turns into fairly a unidimensional puppet to the hero.

Hari likes to ship automobiles up in the air and we as soon as once more get a automotive chase sequence, but this time it’s a 5-minute single-shot sequence — you don’t get the desired impact, but who considered Hari choosing such a method? Remember Vikram eradicating his sacred thread upon realizing his actual caste id in Saamy Square? We get one thing related right here, solely to serve up a baffling pay-off second in a irritating climax sequence.

A nonetheless from ‘Rathnam’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

And but, as you watch the movie flip right into a foolish, unexpectedly put-together product, you find yourself wishing it was not less than simply one other Hari from the 2000s. For occasion, most of his movies flesh out a powerful subplot with a parent-like determine’s sophisticated equation with the hero; this labored even for Vishal in his earlier outings with Hari, Thaamirabharani and Poojai. In Rathnam, the equation between Panneerselvam and Rathnam hardly will get explored, and as an alternative, we get the done-to-dust “amma sentiment.”

Over-the-top melodrama, ineffective punchlines, extreme use of background rating, scenes straight out of a tv cleaning soap to appease “family audiences”…even when he’s making an attempt to renew himself, the outcome remains as outdated as it could possibly get. From “Naan kettavan, aana kedu kettavan illa” in 2007’s Thaamirabharani to “Naan kaasukkaga thappu panra porambokku illa, kolgai kaaga kola panra rowdy” in Rathnam, we have now come a great distance. Maybe it’s time for Hari to put some issues to relaxation.

Rathnam is at present working in theatres