Raja Ranguski movie review: Better screenplay would have made bigger impact!

Director: Dharanidharan

Cast: Shirish Saravanan, Chandhini Tamilarasan, Anupama Kumar, Jayakumar

Everyone loves an intriguing murder mystery from time to time. Sometimes, these mysteries end up being real-life documentaries that nobody has yet to crack open. Plenty of fiction writers take cue from these real life incidents and often magnify the underlying elements - a villain who combines a perfect combination of evil, street smarts, and intelligence. A middleman who gets caught in the events and faces the prospect of a miscarriage of justice. Usually, this leads to them becoming a detective so as to prove their innocence. And then, even more official detectives get involved, as one just won’t do. Raja Ranguski, directed by Dharanidharan, reads just like the outline of such a novel.

Raja (Shirish) is an inexperienced constable in charge of a beat where an enigmatic novel writer Ranguski (Chandhini Tamilarasan) lives in a gated community.  Of course, he’s attracted to her and wishes to somehow take her out on a date. With the help of a fellow resident Maria (Anupama Kumar,) he hatches a plan to pose as a stalker over the phone, since Ranguski often has contrary impulses. In doing so, he hopes that Ranguski would rather want to meet than shy away. The plan succeeds, but then, Raja begins to receive mysterious calls that mimic his own voice. The stranger threatens to murder Ranguski and Raja is now in a panic. What then transpires is that Maria ends up being killed! Given the suspicious circumstances under which Raja found himself - the phone stalking and communications with Maria - the CBI puts the blame on him. A no-nonsense cop KK (Jayakumar) is investigating this, and it’s a race against time for Raja to get clean and find the actual murderers.

 

With his good physique Shirish is aptly cast as a cop and he has also given an impressive feat. Chandhini has a meaty role and had lots of scope, but the dusky actress has utilized it only partially. Anupama Kumar proves her versatility in a brief yet important role. All others Jayakumar, Sathya and Vinod do their part well. While Dharanidharan’s intelligent writing in investigation portions are quite intriguing, the hurried romantic segment is not convincing. Also, the director who deliberately brings in few elements to mislead the audiences eliminates them soon, thus giving away the suspense. The first half is quite gripping, but the same cannot be said post interval.

Technically, Yuvan Shankar Raja’s background score is the biggest plus for the movie and Yuvaa’s lighting and shot division elevates the film’s mood. Had Dharanidharan concentrated on a better screenplay, it would have made bigger impact!