VISITOR COLUMN

Vijay Sethupathi – no one can ignore him nowadays. From being one among the unrecognizable faces behind the hero, to a one scene actor, he is now one of the promising, profitable and at the same time critically credited unavoidable star in Tamil cinema. With ‘Rummy’ he has turned back to a village story after his debut ‘Thenmerku Paruvakatru’ and a special appearance in ‘Sundarapandian’.

Inigo Prabhakar too has a similar start to his career like his co-star and he is also part of the ‘Sundarapandiyan’ winning team.

Coming back to this movie, the story is set in late 1980s with our heroes joining together in college as classmates and obviously roommates. Gayathri (Meenachi), the ‘paaah’ girl in ‘Naduvula Konjam Pakatha Kanom’ once again proves that she is naturally beautiful after ‘Ponmalai Pozhuthu’. You can question how can she fit in a village story but her role and looks are carved out well.

Prabhakar’s (Sakthi) attempts to impress Gayathri,(also classmate) succeeds and a 3^rd person comes in way forcing her to love him. The duo tackles his assault on hostel with friends. The college management throws them out of hostel for it. They find a house to live in Gayathri’s village itself where Vijay Sethupathy (Joseph), meets his girl Iyshwarya (Sorna). Soori (Arunachalam) tries some comedies. Sujatha play Prabhakar's mother.

Joe Malloori of Kumki fame, is the villain who is against love marriage and it is quite guessable that he is related to Gayathri and is. Isn’t it enough to sum up your imagination? At interval, Gayathri falls in his eyes along with Prabhakar. If u can listen to a phase before interval, you can actually guess almost whole of the script and not sure that the director wants us to do so deliberately?

Imaan’s tunes and music score turn the clock back to the old golden days of music and couldn't be more fitting than this. Imaan's best man Yugabharathi, has once again given us beautiful poetry. Camera of Premkumar has recorded frames arguably well and mostly have to deal with temples. Editing is by Raja Mohammed. Dialogues are written by Mona Palanisamy. Climax has that intent to deliver something to the people who oppose love by force but screenplay is simple (can't blame the script for that) and it makes watching a bit boring. Screenplay actually managed to connect some places well. One can question why Vijay Sethupathi should have accepted this role to be the second fiddle to Prabhakar (yes, you read it right).

Director Balakrishnan, has played a safe and planned bet with the well chosen cards he holds - budget can't be high as they only show urban localities throughout the film and a hero who has given success in every outing before. The rest of the leads are also been chosen pretty well and everyone has justified it on screen.

Personal credits to director for not showing the character Syed, the 3rd person mentioned above, as a cunning man waiting for a chance for revenge.

Just like the period of the film, the screenplay of Balakrishnan, is also old as it has the usual boy meets girl things for the major part of the first half and family drama in the later part. If you don't care about script, technical details etc,etc., and only want to watch Vijay Sethupathi, you can skip this one as he is not the first lead. 

This game of 'Rummy' involves 'Two Kings, Two Queens and a Joker' with some required supportive cards. They play an average game in which you can guess every move of the players, making audience impatient at times.

Marks: 5/10