YAARUKKU THERIYUM: Tamil crime-thriller sans actual thrills

Film: “Yaarukku Theriyum”; Cast: Sanjana Singh, Jayaprakash, Riyaz Khan and Kalabhavan Mani; Director: Ganeshan Kamaraj; Rating: **

Along the lines of Hollywood movies such as “Nine Dead” and “Saw”, “Yaarukku Theriyum”, a crime-thriller, would’ve definitely created an impact only if the director had opted for a familiar and experienced star cast. Despite an engaging plot, the film struggles to keep you hooked and eventually graduates as one sans any thrills.

One fine evening, Shakti finds himself locked inside a factory along with two other grievously injured persons. They regain consciousness but fail to recollect who they are. Meanwhile, they stumble upon three more strangers, who also have no clue about how did they end up in the same factory. Further, none of them remember ever being acquainted and therefore they don’t believe each other.

Are these strangers connected? If yes, then how are they connected? With no way out, these strangers should connect the dots and find a way out.

What could’ve been an edge-of-the-seat thriller gets sabotaged because of naive acting and poor characterisation. Although there are moments that increase tension in the film, the overall output falls short of satisfaction. Director Ganeshan, with his amateurish style of filmmaking, does manage to impress a handful of audience, but eventually earns the disappointment of many.

Thankfully, there are no sub-plots in the film and even in the flashback scenes; the director focuses solely on the thriller aspect without paving way to glamour, love and action.

The film’s strength is its screenplay, but sadly it gets diluted with every passing minute.

Riyaz and Kalabhavan Mani show some involvement in their roles, while the rest go unnoticed with their cliched performance.

Although the director showed signs of novelty in bringing forth a story Tamil audience are quite alien to, he simultaneously irritates them with the inclusion of too many English dialogues that sound artificial.

“Yaarukku Theriyum” engages partly, but disappoints extremely.

IANS 2012-11-03 14:42:27