MAANAGARAM

Lokesh Kanagaraj | Sundeep Kishan, Sri, Regina Cassandra | 2017 | Action Thriller

Director Lokesh Kanagaraj has been brave enough to pick up a hyperlink thriller as a directorial debut. The whole film revolves around four distinct characters and the incidents spinning around them. Plot wise the whole film is a simple script but the film maker’s screenplay and execution is what keeps us all spiked up and keeps us engaged throughout the film. The success behind the film is solely based on detailing and characterisation. Perfect actors for perfect roles and genuine believability in everything that happens in the story have been the major positives for the film.

For a Debut director to take up such a story line is definitely appreciable. Delivering an interesting hyperlink story with comparatively fewer commercial elements and new faces (back then) is challenging and Lokesh has done it with at most perfection. The film almost had no plot holes and gave justification for each action and reaction. The success of the film lies in the trust they had on the script, right from start the film maker gave hints to the audience about the connection the main characters had, be it the same red shade checked shirt in the bar or the search for their loss in the interval block each scenes were related and connections to their threads were perfectly done. Perfect placement of the songs and rightly played emotions are added perks to the film.

The film casts not so famous actors at that times who have evolved to be integral recognisable faces right now in the industry. As said earlier the story is spun around the major unnamed four characters, an innocent village guy Sri who comes to Chennai for an interview in an IT company, a poor humble man Charlie who comes to Chennai to work as a cab driver, a hot headed kind hearted Sundeep who is behind his love interest Ragina and the hilarious Munishkanth who kidnaps a boy. All other characters are placed around these four and the instances they meet. Acting wise each artist has delivered exactly what the character demands and portrayed their characters justifications really well. Most importantly each character had a need and a cause to be there in the screen and has wisely proved the need for their presence.

Song scope was really less for the music director but and he didn’t fail to impress us with the space he had. Also, the background score for the film sounded really good and was exceptionally good at some scenes which actually elevated its intensity and hooked us to the plot closer than it could have been. Cinematography on the other hand has really been impressive. Most of the story happens in the night and the Cinematographer has done an clean job in showing the complex Chennai in the best possible way that the story wants. Sharp and vibrant street road shot gave a good ambiance for the actors to perform on. On the Whole definitely Managaram is a good Revisit for any set of audience.