Dejavu Review
Actor Arulnithi, whose recent release ‘D Block’ had mixed response is all set for the worldwide theatrical release of his new outing ‘Dejavu’ today. The movie, directed by Arvindh Srinivasan and produced by cinematographer PG Muthaiah is a mystery-suspense-thriller revolving around few characters in a limited point of time.
It’s night time, when a drunkard (Achyuth Kumar) walks into a police station and registers a complaint that characters that he created in his fictional work have started threatening through phone calls in real life. Initially, assumed as a lame prank from the drunkard, the police department goes through a Topsy-Turvy situation, when shocking incidents occur exactly as he writes involving a girl’s abduction, and she (Smruthi Venkat) is none other than the daughter of DGP Asha (Madhu Bala). Unable to handle the situation, she hires an undercover cop Vikram (Arulnithi) to handle this nick-of-time case. What unfolds next is uncalled-for surprises and twists with a shocking climax.
A filmmaker embarking on the directorial journey without assisting any directors is a rare league and Arivndh becomes the latest one to join the club now.So let us have a quick run into the PROs and CONs of this movie.
On the positive front! The movie has kept up the good graph over expectations from its trailer launch itself. The inquisitiveness on what it could be all about had prevailed. Well, the first half is neat and perfect, where our curious predictions and guess keep happening. But when a movie has managed to raise so much of anticipations from its trailer to the interval point, then, the second half needs to be ten folds highly-activated, gripping and engrossing. This is where, the movie slightly gets middling. Of course, there’s no such major flaw that hampers the progression. Actress Madhubala’s character revealing the main twist by the immediate next to post-intermission episode breaks down the curiousness of audiences. Apparently, there are unlimited twists and turns aftermath, but still, when the antagonist in a mystery-suspense-thriller is revealed too soon, then the clear-picture is out that it’s a revenge tale.
Arulnithi has given a casual performance. We believe, if he gets a Midas-touch of some top-league directors, he can witness a phenomenal change in his acting style. Achyuth Kumar never misses to steal the spotlight with his performance in any given role, and this one is no exception. But when you hear the voice of MS Bhaskar dubbing, we develop a mind set, why the director didn’t choose him for the role, as he would have made it look more appealing. Madhubala delivered a decent performance. Smruthi Venkat has a role of little prominence, and yes, she does it properly. The other actors have done justice to their roles.
The musical score by Ghibran is good with BGM. The cinematography looks slightly blurred in the aerial and few more shots, which the team could have properly planned.
While the basic gist of this movie is unique and appreciable, the team could have tuned the screenplay to a finest level, especially in the second half, which would have worked more wonders.
Verdict: Dejavu has a commendable plot, and presentation is appreciable too. With few more efforts, it would have been an extraordinary mystery-thriller.
