Madura Veeran Movie Review

Taking a debut stroke with a film set against Malaysian premise through Sagaptham, Shanmuga Pandian takes his rural route with Madura Veeran. Much alike the previous film, where the deplorable scenario of Tamil labourers out there in foreign country, he has something to do related with Tamil youngsters. This time, he brings up a much sensational story based on ‘Jallikattu’.

The array of Jallikattu based movies, at least used for the promotional sake had been found in plethora ever since the issue broke out for 2017 Pongal season. Apparently, this one tries to keep itself ritually inclined to its core. There are some sequences, where we start doubting if Samuthirakani would repeat different varieties of bulls that he breathlessly listed in ‘Thondan’. But the dialogue passes on to Shanmuga Pandian with shortlisted varieties. But as we see in posters, it’s Samuthirakani who actually gets to score like a parallel hero, especially during the first hour. Shanmuga Pandian befittingly gets himself settled with ‘Madurai’ ambience and looks like the one out there. It would be really a great thing if he reduces his weight and looks fit that he might throw up a challenge on Vishal’s physique. Stepping into his performance box, he doesn’t opt for the fast paced dance movements. He doesn’t get to score much in romantic portions and it is limited to miniscule prominence. Even in those sequences, its newcomer Meenakshi who does a decent job. But he just leaves us spellbound with his action sequences.

PG Muthaiah doesn’t drag the screenplay to a longer phase and the running length of 2 hours is a major plus. But in this duration, the story looks so much confined to only Jallikattu, which might be a kind of awareness movie rather than being a family entertainer. Say for instance, the comedy sequences don’t work out to a major extent though Bala Saravanan and few others try their best. The father-son elements are too scarce and even mother-son as well. It doesn’t turn out to be a minus though, but it could have been engaging enough if included with these ingredients.

The major plus of this film is the casting of actors and performance. The seasoned actors like Marimuthu, PL Thenappan, Vela Ramamoorthy and Mime Gopi offer their best into their roles. But the misunderstandings of conflicts and overnight reconciliation of 20yrs conflict looks cinematic. Maybe, PG Muthaiah could have proceeded with these portions in racy style. It becomes obvious that the ones we see as suspects of murder aren’t actually the ones as it is a time-worn style in Tamil cinema to divert audiences upon other characters. Despites such slight diminishing attributes, the film doesn’t distract you and keeps you away from tediousness, except for few moments during penultimate-to-climax.

Musical score by Santhosh Dayanidhi, particularly in background helps the screenplay to a greater degree. Even the songs are enjoyable with the visuals. Lacing the suspense to plot with communal clash and Jallikattu issue, PG Muthaiah’s screenplay somehow manages to keep the film on right momentum.