Seema Raja

For a good chunk of its runtime, Seema Raja directed by Ponram feels like a repeated formula with hell a lot of randomness in its screenplay. And after that it tries to be political with all the farmer issue coming into the picture and with a bloated legacy reincarnation idea, Seema Raja is an entertainer that got overloaded with too much of unnecessary stuff.

So our hero Seema Raja belongs to the youngest generation of a family that ruled one part of Tamil Nadu for a long time. Now there is no glory and a tussle over the ownership of the common market in the village results in a scenario where the love life of Seema Raja ends up in a difficult situation. How the attempt to save the relationship results in the enlightenment of the “prince” is what Seema Raja dealing with.

The summary I just mentioned above could give you a feeling that it is a simple and effective idea for an entertainer. And much like a lot of Tamil entertainers that target the B and C center audience by compromising the longevity of the content, Seema Raja also goes after pointless humor, glorified romance and excessive heroics. It seems like Ponram and Sivakarthikeyan know the fact that Sivakarthikeyan can’t go for a full-fledged action hero flick right now and you are repeatedly shown comedy bits to maintain the humor vibe of the combo. As a package of two hours of laughter, Seema Raja might work. But the story is so thin and the subplots are so wayward that the chances of you remembering any of the jokes is pretty less.

If you try to address the politics of the movie, Ponram is sort of glorifying the old zamindar culture by saying it knew how to maintain it rather than the current system. And at one point Seema Raja is comparing his stalking talent to that of the story of the Phoenix bird. These sort of regressive glorified politics is there packaged as protectiveness or responsibility. Humor is typical and because of the lackluster story structure, the SK – Soori combination humor helps the movie in being engaging. Like I said, the script is way too random in terms of ideas and you have subplots involving leopard that right now makes no sense to me. The 14th-century flashback just elongates the already stretched out plot and I found it extremely cheesy. Visuals are colorful and grand, much like most of the Ponram films. Music also serves the purpose neatly with a few of them having catchy beats.

Sivakarthikeyan is in his usual mode with an effortless portrayal of humor and same style depiction of swag and sentiments. Samantha towards the climax gets a fight scene which I feel that she earned because of the stardom she carries. That fight sequence offered to her was the only bright patch I could see in this dull movie that also sidelined the heroine after a point. Soori was in his usual style and surprisingly he wasn’t annoying. Simran in the antagonist shade was good as the portrayal demanded a certain kind of eccentricity. Lal was a wasted talent here. Napoleon chips in a with a convincing performance as the hero’s father.

Ponram’s previous films were also in the same category of entertainment. I wasn’t a big fan of those even though I found them passable. But in Seema Raja, the film just goes on and on after a phase making it a tedious experience.

Rating: 2/5