Sketch - Hardly exciting!

Bharath Vijayakumar

Vikram in masala films is an interesting case study. In 2003, with Dhool and Saamy he actually forayed successfully into the hero driven action template while someone like Vijay was trying to migrate to this space. But since then Vikram's attempts in the quintessential masala space has been largely unsuccessful. Sketch is another dabble in the same direction.

Director Vijay Chander got one thing right in his debut Vaalu. It was a lightweight entertainer which wore its tag quite comfortably. It might or might not have worked for you but it did pretty much achieve what it had set out to. With Sketch he wants to keep it lighthearted and narrate a story as well. Furthermore, he tries to treat it like a thriller at places. The result is a pointless film that simply goes nowhere.

Vikram looks like the right man at the wrong place. You wonder about his thought process in choosing films. What could have caught his attention in the script? To be fair you recollect the plot and it actually has potential. But nothing interesting is churned out on screen. The casting, apart from Vikram and his friends is a huge letdown. None of them even register their presence for a minute. There is a build up scene for a police officer where they project him as someone like Bramma (Yog Japee) in Soodhu Kavvum. But then the character does nothing interesting throughout the film.

Taman's BGM and Vikram's swag are what you take away from the film. But even these make their presence in scenes that hardly pack a punch. The film employs every other cliche including a Brahmin heroine and her timid groom. Cliches are bearable when you are invested in the film to a certain degree but in Sketch they double up with your disinterest for what is happening on screen. I was reminded of Sethu's (Bobby Simha) dialogue to Kumar in Jigarthanda. Was the sketch for us the audience?

Bottomline:

Sketch does very little with what is actually an interesting premise. For a movie that is about a hero who smartly sketches his plans, there is nothing smart about the screenplay.

Rating: 2.25/5