Sathya

I really don’t know what made AK Saajan and Diphan go ahead with the movie Sathya which looks like an absolute cliché on paper. With a making style that only increases the tacky nature of the movie, Sathya starring Jayaram is beyond boring and at times is a test of patience.

Sathya is this man who is an expert in playing cards. A peculiar circumstance makes him go to a south Indian place in search of a girl named Rosy. The movie is basically about his journey with Rosy to Pondicherry and it also shows us why this quest and journey happened.

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Two things are the most annoying factors in this film. One is its outdated treatment and the other is its poor technical support. The movie uses that tried and tested mass action formula over and over. If you look at the entire story, our hero is in a real hurry to save a life, but he has all the time in the world to do slow motion walks, say attitude dialogues and many other things that are just there to make the hero look like a larger than life character. They may have the excuse that this was supposed to be a hero worshipping mass action film, but you need some sort of coherency in that too. Some of the attitude showing dialogues in the movie makes you laugh. There is this pattern of showing what the hero did to overcome a hurdle by going back to it. That happens in the introduction scene of the hero and that pattern repeats too many times. You only get bored seeing it.

Diphan has made an impression with his first film Puthiyamukham. Action is his strong and safe zone. But when it comes to Sathya he is unable to create a fresh feel to the treatment. The predictable and over the top content written by A K Saajan would have only worked if the things happening on screen looked sensible and entertaining. Some of the back and forth narration pattern makes the film way too clumsy. The dialogues are too heavy at times and sound insensitive to the occasion. The edits were really bad, lacking continuity and flow. The cinematography was also poor. The lighting of the frame in that forest sequence and in the climax fight sequence inside a factory, you can actually see the Crain used for doing the stunts and also the location light equipments behind Jayaram when he makes that slow motion walk.  The stunts look really lame and Jayaram lacks flexibility in doing those. Well the songs are just okay with one already being criticized for being a copy. The background score was underwhelming.

Jayaram appears in this rough look in Sathya. The look may fit to the description they have about the character. Beyond that the character is more about build up rather than depth. His back story, his love story etc. won’t make any impact on you emotionally and the roughness he adds to the portrayal isn’t that “mass cool”. Parvathy Nambiar may have overdone that song, but in the rest of the film she is kind of okay. Roma wasn’t that great as Rosy. I don’t know the name of the guy who did the role of the villain, but his performance was undeniably pathetic.  Aju Varghes is there in a completely insignificant one minute scene so that they can use him in the poster. Saju Navodaya is that mandatory comedian.

Sathya from Diphan is a movie that failed to adapt to the changes in treatment. It also fails in having a content that will excite you for its uniqueness or approach. The movie is just under 2 hours in terms of run time, but still it feels much more than that.

Rating: 1.5/5

By Aswin Bharadwaj

Founder and editor of Lensmen Reviews.

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