‘Sathya Sothnai’ movie review: If only the witty one-liners could have saved the film

A still from ‘Satya Sothanai’ | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

2017 saw a number of great, small-budget Tamil films starring debutants. Along with Lokesh Kanagaraj MahanagaramGopi Nainar’s Aramm and Nithilan Saminathan’s kurangu bommaiSuresh Sangaiah criminally underrated oru kidayin karunai manu, Despite having a very thin premise and a slow pace, the director maintains the pace while packing the film with unique characters who engage in naive yet witty interactions that lead to some amusing moments. While he tries to replicate it with his second year student, Satya Sothnai, Unfortunately, the results are far from favorable.

Satya Sothnai Follows the trials and tribulations of Pradeep (Premgi Amren), a gullible man who sees a dead body at a remote location and decides to hand over the man’s gold chain and mobile to the police. He also takes the body a few meters away as even a dead person would prefer the shade of a tree rather than being under the scorching sun. This, surprisingly, becomes a problem when Pradeep learns that there must have been more jewelry on her body and the police feel that torturing poor Pradeep is the only way they can get at it.

Both Suresh’s films deal with innocent people caught in precarious circumstances due to the death of a stranger, and how the people around them, in the name of resolving the issue, try to capitalize on it to their advantage. It is quite clear that Suresh wants to hold a mirror up to the society and point out that the systems put in place for the betterment of mankind are not doing their job properly, and there is a need to understand the difference between being altruistic and shrewd.

But in his second outing, the simple premise doesn’t allow the film to do justice to its subject and the troubling tonal differences don’t work either. Premgi’s character Pradeep is shown to be an illiterate who can converse in English; He is unemployed but enters a police station as he owns it, he is gullible but once he runs away with a walkie-talkie from the station, he uses it to get free stuff from the villagers Is. spelling discrepancy Satya Sothnai’s Biggest shortcoming. We see Pradeep talking at length about police brutality, but when he is thrashed with lathis, a comical song blares from the speakers. What can be considered ridiculous in this?

A still from ‘Satya Sothanai’ | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

But there are some good parts in the movie which are hilarious. Suresh’s debut film mainly worked on the genre of humor which is unique to the rural backdrop where he set his film and it is no different here as well. When one of the convicts at the station is asked his name – and the answer is Vairamuthu – the policeman asks why would someone have such a good name and resort to such activities. Different Though oru kidayin karunai manu, such sequences are far and few in between. In another scene, where the video recording is important and the characters are glued to the TV screen, one of them goes “Anna, CCTV Vela Siyudhu?” Had the same self-awareness been shown throughout the film, it would have been better.

Just like Mahatma Gandhi’the story of my experiments with truthTitled ‘Sathiya Sodhanai’ in Tamil – detailing his life from childhood to 1921 – Pradeep also shares his life story as a series of events that led him to this point . But those scenes lead to no man’s land due to the limitations of the script. Apart from Premji, who is a brilliant casting choice, it is the cops, especially Kuberan (Mohan) and Mahadevan (Selva Murugan), who steal the show along with the old lady. Some aspects in the film such as moving the body, so that the matter comes under the jurisdiction of another person (as we have seen in the movies)Jai bhim) and elderly people do not understand the court proceedings which produces humor (similarly). Any business ) Give it the feel seen there.

Could have been a more-rounded film with better character arcs Satya Sothnai An interesting watch on the lines of many small town police investigation dramas that have come up in Tamil and Malayalam in recent times. But Suresh Sangaiah has managed to craft a very simple film that goes nowhere but still holds together in parts thanks to the one-liners.