Saithan

Most of the films that featured Vijay Antony in the lead role had interesting premises that created curiosity. Even his last film Pichaikkaran created a good impression in the box office and we all saw one of the scenes becoming a hit in the recent past after the demonetization tactics. Coming to the film Saithan, Vijay Antony’s latest home production directed by debutant Pradeep Krishnamoorthy, the one key thing that has gone missing is the element of intrigue. Starting off as a horror movie, Saithan traverses in to various moods. But because of the lack of solid surprises in the script, the film falls flat.

Dinesh is this talented software professional whom the company trusts completely. He is married to Ishwarya, a girl he found from a matrimonial website. While working on an important project, Dinesh sees these hallucinating images and he was able to hear someone else’s voice. Life becomes miserable for Dinesh after this. The movie Saithan is actually about Dinesh’s own journey to find out the reason behind all these.

Pradeep Krishnamoorthy isn’t interested in lingering around irrelevant areas of the story. From introducing the hero and up to his marriage, everything happens quickly in this just around 2 hour long film. But after that, the movie goes in to that predictable or less exciting phase of horror and thrill. As the narrative moves forward elements like reincarnation of characters and their behavior gets introduced in the content. Along with that there is this drug mafia sub plot which is an attempt to add sense to the fantasy. On paper, it is definitely a clever mix of sensible fantasy and thrill, but when it became a film there wasn’t much in the film to absorb you as a viewer.

I have never felt Vijay Antony as a good actor. He has his own limitations and you can clearly see that in the last half an hour or so of Saithan where he is supposed to be that eccentric Sharma character. Arundathi Nair was fine in playing the female lead in both time zones. Other than these two there aren’t many actors in extensive roles.

The one good thing about the making of Pradeep Krishnamoorthy is that he isn’t confined to the typical formula of suffocating themes with songs and jokes. But the lack of originality in treatment and failure to create an intriguing atmosphere is the down side of Saithan. The way they show the technical knowledge of the hero, CCTV footages having the actual movie shots etc. are minor things that sort of stands out. The cinematography was average and so was the music. The production design was impressive.

Saithan isn’t creating the curiosity Vijay Antony brand films usually have.  Treatment being typical in many areas and the story not having original ideas to create exciting twists and turns makes Saithan an unimpressive movie.

Rating: 2/5