Ulkuthu Review – Quite engaging but lacks the punch!!!

Bharath Vijayakumar

If Caarthick Raju unexpectedly took the comic route in a plot revolving around revenge in his debut Thirudan Police, he takes the straightforward action route here. But here too he tries to keep things a little different from the mundane.

The film is off to a rather lukewarm start with the initial 30 minutes completely devoted to comedy. Though Bala Saravanan is in very good form the comedy track itself is sort of uninspiring and the supporting actors fail to make it work. But the comedy actually works much better in the later portions of the film. The action takes centre-stage midway in the first half and things get interesting. It is not the edge of the seat kind of excitement but a certain tension is in the air. Once again it is difficult to come to a conclusion about Dinesh's performance. We are not really sure as to what he is expressing but that works here as that is precisely his character in the film as we need to be guessing as to what he is up-to.

The intent to be realistic and innovative with the action sequences is a relief and throwing Kabbadi in the mix is a nice little idea. The film is quite good in this stretch until the flashback unfolds. The flashback isn't unbearable by any stretch of imagination but comes across as extremely unimaginative and loud in contrast to the rest of the film. The romance is cliche and forgettable but thankfully short. For the film to work as a whole it really needed the villains to be sketched better as well as better casting.

Bottom-line

A template revenge drama that works for a while as it keeps things under wraps for quite sometime. But the flimsy flashback plays spoilsport.

Verdict : 2.5/5