Yugi Review

Ashwin Ram

Yugi is a thriller genre movie starring Kathir, Narain, Natty, Anandhi, Pavithra Lakshmi and Athmeeya Rajan in the lead roles. It is directed by Zac Harris.

Premise:

Anandhi is kidnapped and John Vijay is murdered. Two cases are investigated parallelly; what are the reasons and how they link with one another is untied through a series of events.

Writing/ Direction:

The core story is fine and more than enough to make a gripping whodunit. There is even a great conflict that evolves into something big. But the focus is absolutely missing, what part of the story must have been given the center-stage is sidelined. For example, what was shown in the whole first half could have just been conveyed in 15 minutes time. The interrogations are empty, there are no smart moments in the movie, execution is pathetic and makes the happenings even more worse. Direction is kiddish, such terribly written dialogues that gives a feel of dubbed movies at times. The latter had so many notorious sequences, however some stretches were fairly watchable. A viewer would be able to guess the major twist just before it is revealed in the flick, even after the core is open to the public, the minute details are explained in an extremely sluggish and boring way as if the audience are eagerly anticipating to witness what is coming next.

Performances:

Known artists, proven talents but unfortunately such underwhelming performances from almost all. Kathir, Narain and Natty were passable, it’s also because they had nothing much to do. But the women in the film had scope to emote, sadly they all looked fake on-screen when given a loud or moving scene.

Technicalities:

Technically a weak film as well, music is the only saving grace. Satisfactory songs and a harmless background score. Pathetic shot compositions and framing sense, also very odd close-up camera angles. Editing cannot be poorer than this, random scene orders a film has ever had in recent times. The flow travels in a clueless manner at many spots because of the transition jumps and shot insertions.

Bottomline: A good enough storyline that is executed so badly with dry investigation scenes, the long-drawn-out screenplay makes even this 130 minutes long film a tiring watch.

Yugi - Mental Block!

Rating: 2/ 5