After the disaster called Seval, Director Hari is back with 2 aces (if we can call it that ) in his latest film-Singam. First of all he turns back to his favourite lead man-Surya with whom he has delivered two hits earlier (Aaru & Vel ). Also this time Hari returns to a format he’s handled before and which worked before- the story of an angry cop taking on a mob led by a tough villain. Yes my friends I’m referring to Saamy which starred Vikram andTrisha and which gave a major boost to the careers of both Hari and Vikram.
While Saamy was based in Tirunelveli, Singam is based in Nallur near Tuticorin. Surya plays the local S.I- Duraisingam who is true to his name, a firebrand of a cop. Prakash Raj plays Mayilvaganam, an extortion & land settlement handler who runs his activity in Chennai. A freak incident involving an old murder case brings Mayilvaganam to Nallur and thats where the first confrontation between the two takes place.
While all this is happening our cop also finds the time in his own characteristic way to lose his heart to the heroine,Anushka. She is the daughter of an industrialist (Nassar) who is in the village on vacation. After the altercation between Duraisingam and Mayilvaganam in Nallur, Durai gets promoted as Inspector and also transferred to Chennai. But it’s after he lands in Chennai that he gets to know that his transfer to Chennai was orchestrated by Mayilvaganam who now issues a challenge to Durai, saying the situation is now different as it’s his domain now.
Thus begins the game of brains & brawn (more of brawn of course) between Duraisingam and Mayilvaganam and so the movie chugs along. No prizes for getting what happens in the end though 
. The movie has all the elements associated with a “mass movie” – action in plenty, punch dialogues, songs shot abroad, comedy track and what not. The movie also happens to be the first major venture of Reliance Big Pictures in Tamil Cinema and I’m sure that this venture will give them a lot of confidence.
. The movie has all the elements associated with a “mass movie” – action in plenty, punch dialogues, songs shot abroad, comedy track and what not. The movie also happens to be the first major venture of Reliance Big Pictures in Tamil Cinema and I’m sure that this venture will give them a lot of confidence.But having said all this I must add on a few more things I felt after watching Singam. For those who’ve watched Saamy the movie brings in a major feeling of deja-vu as a lot of elements are similar. In fact I’d rate Saamy as a better entertainer primarily because of two reasons- the comedy track by Vivek in Saamy is far better than his own track in Singam and also the music of Saamy was very popular, the tunes by Harris Jayaraj can still be heard. Compare this with Devi Sri Prasad’s work in Singam and the difference is very glaring. The music of Singam is very much of the ordinary kind, considering what DSP is capable of.
This poster illustrates what the movie actually is like
At times the dialogues and action scenes certainly go overboard especially with the constant reference to lion/singam motif being shown time and again when Surya is in the angry mode. Quite a few sequences also resemble those seen in other recent films and its quite funny how Singam goes up rising in his career. For someone who gets promoted from S.I to Inspector in 3 years, it’s a shocker to see him being promoted as ACP in about 3 months ( or so ) – must be the fastest case of promotion in Tamilnadu Police I guess . But then of course this being a mass movie, such questions do not really make sense.
In spite of all this and more if the film works, then a major share of the credit goes to Surya who carries off the loud cop role in his own characteristic way. Surya has already played a cop successfully earlier in Gautham Vasudev Menon’s Kakka Kakka, but that was a more subtle and a realistic portrayal of a cop. Here he makes a switch over to a larger than life cop and carries it off fairly well. In fact you even wonder if anyone else could have done a better job than Surya over here. Anushka’s character has reasonable scope to perform in the movie and that’s a surprise considering it’s a hard core action film.
– must be the fastest case of promotion in Tamilnadu Police I guess . But then of course this being a mass movie, such questions do not really make sense.In spite of all this and more if the film works, then a major share of the credit goes to Surya who carries off the loud cop role in his own characteristic way. Surya has already played a cop successfully earlier in Gautham Vasudev Menon’s Kakka Kakka, but that was a more subtle and a realistic portrayal of a cop. Here he makes a switch over to a larger than life cop and carries it off fairly well. In fact you even wonder if anyone else could have done a better job than Surya over here. Anushka’s character has reasonable scope to perform in the movie and that’s a surprise considering it’s a hard core action film.
Prakash Raj plays the bad guy pretty well in his own characteristic style. The supporting actors like Radha Ravi, Nassar, Manorama, Bose Venkat, Vijayakumar etc play their roles as expected. While watching the movie one can easily come to terms with the fact that Surya this time has safely trespassed into Vijay’s territory and emerged unscathed. But I hope that with his forthcoming projects like Rakta Charitra and Ezham Arivu (with Murugadoss) he will steer clear of this formula for some time at least.
Considering that the movie is turning out to be a good proposition for Sun Pictures and Reliance Big Pictures, it looks like Hari has done his job fairly well. His task was to deliver a summer blockbuster and that mission has been achieved. But as viewers what we can only hope is that we do not get Saamy Redux (aka part 3) again sometime soon. But then when success speaks, it’s tough to predict the flow of tide. Till then I guess this lion will roar for now and bring in the crowd .
.Originally published in PFC- http://passionforcinema.com/singam-movie-review-this-lion-roars-for-now/
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