CAST: Vijay Sethupathi, Lakshmi Menon, Kishore, Harish Utthaman.
DIRECTION: Rathinasiva
Vijay Sethupathi is in full form and has had a dream year with his sixth movie Rekka hitting the cinema halls. True to the sobriquet ‘Makkal Selvan’ (People’s Man), he has taken a mass hero avatar in this film. Unlike his earlier films (which had stories closer to reality) where he appears as a simpleton, here in Rekka he has attempted a stylish makeover in song routines.
Siva (Vijay Sethupathi) is a happy-go-lucky lawyer (with not a single scene in court) who lives in Kumbakonam with his doting parents (KS Ravikumar and Sri Ranjani) and younger sister. He unites lover couples in marital bliss to overcome guilt for a childhood sin committed by him and in the process he creates many enemies.
One such rival is David (Harish Utthaman) as Siva kidnaps the former’s bride in the nth moment. With the impending wedding of Siva’s sister, David gets a chance to take his revenge. He threatens Siva that he would stop his sister’s marriage and create mayhem there, if he does not heed to his order. He asks Siva to kidnap Bharathi (Lakshmi Menon), daughter of an influential politician from Madurai who is engaged to a powerful thug Chezhian (Kabeer Singh) from Kovai.
David has a score to settle with Chezhian. Bharathi who has seen Siva and floored with his approach of getting lovers married on an earlier occasion was too willing to run away with him much to the confusion of the latter. Now, the game between Siva and the gangsters commence.
The film heavily relies on Vijay Sethupathi’s on-screen charisma and a natural performer that he is, indeed shoulders the responsibility to a great extent. All right, the gravity defying stunts and the mass intro number for the hero is all acceptable, had the director concentrated on a solid script to project Sethupathi as a mass hero.
Thankfully, there are no punch lines even as there’s a dialogue by Sethupathy who says, “Panchu? Naanu? Panju maadhiri pesuven“ (I don’t utter punch dialogues, I will only talk as soft as cotton).
Though the director tries to justify Lakshmi Menon’s portrayal of clichéd ‘loosu ponnu’ of Tamil cinema towards the end through a dialogue, the damage has already been done. Satish’s comedy is a passé. KSR, Harish, Kishore and Sija Rose have given their best. The flashback portions involving young Siva, Kishore and Sija are touching and Imman’s poignant number Kannamma elevates them.
The background score and other songs are also good, but their placement act as speed breakers. Barring that, there was never a dull moment. Credit goes to editor Praveen.
