Rasavathi Review - Convincing Subject Executed Badly!

Ashwin Ram

Rasavathi is a dramatic thriller starring Arjun Das and Tanya Ravichandran in the lead roles. Directed by Shanthakumar of Mounaguru fame and the music is scored by Thaman.

 
Premise:
Arjun Das is practicing as a homeopathy doctor in Kodaikanal. A psychotic police officer gets transferred there. Their miscellaneous past connects them in a face-off situation, how they settle their scores is the remaining story.

 
Writing/ Direction:
Villain character is written in an interesting manner, the film begins with a powerful introduction scene for him. The familiar bad childhood trope is used as a reasoning for his psyche behavior, it is fortunately shown in a strong manner. The quirky dialogues he utters in certain serious situations are crowd pleasing. On the flip side, the protagonist’s portions are extremely sluggish for the very little that is happening around him. Same for the heroine as well, Tanya Ravichandran gets along well with Arjun Das and eventually they happen to be in a relationship, for this thin romantic line, the film takes immense time. Also, they both suffer from silly flashbacks that don’t compliment their present characteristics in any manner. The director keeps throwing relentless social messages at regular intervals about every topic possible, the worst part is that he has believed that he has fluently incorporated them in the story, but unfortunately it is the other way around. The film connects the hero and the villain at a point with a valid purpose, but the predictable reveal is done too late and the director never really made a smart use of the conflict. Way too many unwanted characters and sequences are added, Ramya’s role was bizarre with references about the director’s previous works, the finale with the lockdown factor was lame, they could have created something more challenging for the town to go on mute.

Performances:
Neat acting by the lead pair Arjun Das and Tanya Ravichandran, they would have shined brighter if better scenes and backstories were written for their roles. Dynamic performance by the menacing villain Sujith Shankar, he owned the psychic space with so much conviction. Everything fell in place to make his character notable. Nothing much to mention about actress Ramya’s work, it felt like her role was forcefully placed which didn’t add any value to the story. The flashback heroine did a fruitful job by playing her small part well, other than that the supporting artists hardly made any impact as they were just roaming around on-screen literally as fillers.

Technicalities:
No songs, even the montages are filled up with karaoke music. Commendable work by Thaman with respect to background score. The treatment is pleasing and he has given sufficient breathing space in the gaps too. Solid cinematography, the Kodaikanal town was captured neatly, more than anything the frames with psychic backdrop are amazing, especially what they have achieved with shadow movements was stunning. Editing is a huge letdown, so empty and the pattern lacks freshness, also the lags exist throughout the flow.

Bottomline

Musically and visually sound, with a peculiar villain character who is strong enough on-screen, the film majorly disappoints by poorly utilizing the opportunity. With dull screen-writing and preachy narrative, it suffers to engage.

Rating - 2.25/ 5