Gouravam Review - Radha Mohan disappoints

by Raven

Director Radha Mohan and Prakash Raj have delivered many heart-warming movies like ‘Azhagiya Theeye’, ‘Mozhi’ and ‘Abhiyum Naanum’ before. The most pleasing aspect about their movies is that their movies convey the complex emotions in a subtle yet beautiful manner. But, sadly, that is nowhere to be seen in their latest film ‘Gouravam’. Radha Mohan has tried to take up a sensitive subjeect (Honour Killing) and make a film out of it. He has eventually done it, but without his usual magic. The movie marks the debut of Sirish (Allu Sirish) and Yami Gautham of ‘Vicky Donor’ fame in Kollywood.

The Plot

The story revolves around Arjun (Sirish) and his quest for his missing friend Shanmugam. Shanmugam, who belongs to a lower caste, has reportedly eloped with a girl belonging to a higher caste from his village. Arjun is joined by his friend Venky, a lawyer Yaazhini (Yami Gautham) and around 50 of Shanmugam’s friends to help him find Shanmugham. What happens to Shanmugam and his girl friend forms the rest of the story.

Performances

For a movie that is intense and dwells too much on emotions, a suitable lead is the first criteria for the film to click. Sadly, Sirish is far from convincing in the film. He could neither emote nor maintain a relaxed body language. He looks firm all the time and one would wonder why he is keeping his mouth open even when he has no dialogues to speak.

Yami Gautham looks beautiful and does reasonably well. With good opportunities coming up her way, she could well mark a mark here. The person who has acted as Venky is impressive with his lively performance. As usual, Prakash Raj stands tall in this film and he seems to be tailor made for the role with his stern attitude. The rest of the actors including Nassar are merely used as fillers.

Technicalities

Thaman has done a decent job on the musical front. The background score aids the movie’s flow but songs do not help the movie’s cause. They could have easily done away with couple of songs. Preetha’s cinematography is functional, capturing some greenery on the river shore. Editor Alen could have trimmed the movie by at least 15 minutes. Although the movie runs for only 2 hours and 16 minutes, the audience did get restless half way through.

Direction – Radha Mohan

Hits

• Kudos to director Radha Mohan for boldly handling a sensitive issue sensibly, without worrying about the consequences.
• The director has stayed away from commercial intrusions, except for couple of songs.

Misses

• The subtleness in the dialogues and the poignant nature of the characters which you usually associate with a Radha Mohan’s movie are completely missing. There is too much of talking done throughout the movie and most of the dialogues are loud and convey the same thing again and again.
• The story is very predictable and one could exactly predict what could be the next scene. There is over-dramatization at parts and they actually do not create the intended impact too.
• The film gains some momentum just before the intermission. Sadly, the director seems to have missed taking it forward into the second half.

Bottomline

A novel theme, alright! But, the movie lacks muscle to convey the message across in a convincing and entertaining manner. The movie is nowhere near Radha Mohan's previous films.

Rating  - 2/5