Naai Sekar Returns Review - Poor Show!

Ashwin Ram

Naai Sekar Returns marks the comeback of Vaigaipuyal Vadivelu to the big screens as a lead hero. The film is directed by Suraj and the music is scored by Santhosh Narayanan.

Premise:

Vadivelu earns money by blackmailing the owners of the dogs by kidnapping them. One day, he accidentally kidnaps the notorious criminal Anadaraj's pet dog. How Vadivelu and gang escape from the situation forms the remaining story.

Writing/ Direction:

There are multiple tracks in the flow that might sound convincing when they are separate shorts, but the link is done poorly. The plot-points that take the story forward are very weak, the substandard connection tool used dilutes the subject further. There are few genuinely enjoyable counter dialogues, but because of the inconsistent writing, they don’t land to their fullest effect. Thumbs up to the Anandaraj’s portions, they are saviour of the film as the situation has been established well and so the jokes click. Sadly, he occupies only one fourth of the movie, and the rest are painful to sit through. The Munishkanth track had the potential, but underutilized to the level it feels needless and could have been cut-off ruthlessly to save everyone's time. Vadivelu has his moments, gets a solid introduction idea that creates magic despite being a no-brainer. His energy is still alive, and I wish the screenplay had impressive situations to compliment it. Vadivelu's scenes acting as a blind man in the second half aren't that boring, but it has nothing special to relish. But his scenes in the first half are intolerant, mainly due to the loud characterizations of Kingsley and It Is Prashanth. Mismatch of lip movement and dialogues is a huge issue in the movie, a part of each and every scene is out-of-sync trying to improve the quality in the dubbing stage.

Performances:

Vadivelu has done a decent job in terms of performance, his comedy timing and joyful presence fail to click at most places, could have been enjoyable if the situations were penned properly. Anandaraj gets it right with the dark humour genre, delivers what's required and he has been perfectly supported by his sidekicks. On the other hand, zero contribution by Vadivelu's gang members; Redin Kingsley, (It Is) Prashanth and Shivangi are always in an exaggerated-mode and extremely irritating on-screen.

Technicalities:

Average songs, the supposed to be wacky tracks aren't appealing as they lack finesse. Santhosh Narayanan has worked well with the background score, he has implemented a nice variety of music. Good camera work, some neat single-shots and harmless angles. Editing is messy, 140 minutes runtime but feels extremely lengthy as the lags are kept as it is, such long sequences that are flat and random scene orders. Terrible costume design, intended to be funny but are irritation for the eyes.

Bottomline

Multiple tracks in the story fail to come together. There are a few laughable moments, thanks to Anandaraj and gang, but the main man disappoints as his portions hardly had any delightful situation for him to score.

Naai Sekar Returns - A Forgettable Comeback!

Rating - 2.25/ 5