Siren Review | An Underwhelming Revenge Drama That Ends up Flat and Melodramatic

The latest Jayam Ravi film Siren, aka Siren 108, at its core, is a very basic revenge drama that tries to look unique by doing some restructuring. Directed by Antony Bhagyaraj, who previously co-wrote Viswasam, has actually made yet another father-daughter story. But the way Antony has constructed intrigue in the narrative has a familiar nature, and with too many convenient coincidences and unsurprising sentiments, Siren ultimately fails to create any sort of impact.

Thilagan is a prisoner who has finally decided to come out of jail, on parole, after 14 years, mainly to see his daughter. But since he was a murder convict, his daughter refused to see him. After Thilagan came out of jail, a few murders happened in the city and the possibility of Thilagan being around those places while the murders happened raised a suspicion in the mind of SI Nandhini. Her investigation to find the link between the murders and Thilagan is what we see in Siren.

If you look at the posters and promos, you can see the effort to place it as a dual between Nandhini and Thilagan. Actually, it had the scope to be that sort of a tussle, as both characters had the same line, “I didn’t kill anyone” on two different occasions in the film. But Antony has no plans to develop the story in that zone. It is very clear from an early stage that our hero has been wrongly accused in the murder case. The script’s trajectory is such that as it moves forward, the story becomes flatter and melodramatic. The typical Tamil movie heroic exaggerations happen in the film’s second half. Because of the familiarity and predictability, it fails to create the sort of euphoria Antony Bhagyaraj may have imagined.

There is so much planning and coincidences in the movie that is unraveling in the second half. By the time Antony decides to unveil the hero in this revenge-seeking shade, the over-the-top nature of many of the twists makes the movie unexciting. The overdoing of many tracks is one of the reasons why the excitement gets lost. When we finally know what precisely led to Thilagan’s conviction, the level of drama staged by the daughter starts to feel more like an overreaction. Then you have the Yogi Babu jokes on one side and the extremely B and C center “paasam” on another side. Some of the backstories regarding Thilagan’s prison term, including the explanation of how he learned certain tactics, sound a bit too bizarre. You might have an argument that it is a Tamil film, and you don’t need to check for that much logic. But considering how the movie started off, this decision to reduce it into a usual revenge drama felt disappointing.

With his salt and pepper looks as the evolved Thilagan, Jayam Ravi manages to be convincing in the role. The excessive goodness in the character makes him go back to his usual set of expressions occasionally. Keerthy Suresh, as Nandhini, has a constant smolder on her face. Yogi Babu plays the part of the comic relief Velankanni in his typical style. Samuthirakkani, Azhagam Perumal, and Ajay, respectively, play the roles of the antagonists. Anupama Paramesawaran appears in the flashback portions of the movie, and she doesn’t have any lines. Yuvina Parthavi has portrayed the role of the daughter of Thilagan.

I wasn’t a big fan of Viswasam, which basically used the emotional track between the father and daughter to cover up its outlandish over-the-top elements. When it comes to Siren, neither the emotional elements nor the improbable stuff have the conviction to move you on an emotional level.