At one point in his career, during the early to late 2000s, director Hari consistently made entertaining mass-masala flicks. These movies were by no means great, but they were fun times at the cinemas. His movies came with simple but effective stories that flowed and he knew how to properly stage mass (stand-up-and-whistle) sequences. Some of you might find this next piece of information surprising, but this is the very helmer who gave us films like Kovil and Vel. Hari was also influential when it came to Suriya’s and Vikram’s transition from actors to movie stars, giving them some of their early mass hits like Saamy, Arul and Aaru.
These days, though, the man is a lost soul. He’s an errr… Arsene Wenger during his later years at Arsenal. Just like Mr Wenger, Hari seems to have lost his voice and imagination. But consumed by his ego and unwillingness to take a step back, not forgetting his overconfidence that his old formulas will still work today, Hari has resigned to regurgitating sequels to his older movies. Singam II in 2013, Singam III in 2017 and now in 2018, standing at the bottom of a barrel that’s scraped empty, he gives us Saamy Square (because a nonsensical title is as far as his creativity stretches these days), 15 years after the original.
In the real world, Saamy Square takes place 15 years after its original. Now the film could’ve gone in a couple of different directions. One, it could’ve been set immediately after the events of the first movie (it’s not like fans of Tamil cinema are incapable of suspending our disbelief when it comes to the ages of these top stars. Besides, as far as ageing goes, Vikram is more Tom Cruise, than he is Rajinikanth). A much more interesting story would have Vikram play his age — perhaps a greying police officer on the verge of retirement, forced to bring down one last bad guy. But consider the approach Hari takes. Saamy Square is set 28 years after the climax of the original, but it doesn’t follow the Aarusaamy of the original. Instead, it follows Ram Saamy, the deceased Aarusaamy’s now grown up son. Only, Ram Saamy has the exact same look and mannerisms as Aarusaamy. But wait! Before you give me the WTF look, there’s more.
We learn that the man who killed Aarusamy is none other than Annachi (Srinivasa Rao Kota)’s retconned youngest son, Raavana (Bobby Simha). Assuming Raavana was 18 years old when he killed Aarusamy and it’s 28 years later when we cut to present, that would mean that the 34-year-old Bobby Simha is playing a 46-year-old, while the 52-year-old Vikram plays a 28-year-old. Why?
If you’re going to make a movie about Aarusamy’s son, why not take a completely different approach. Why not make Ram Saamy more of a brain guy than a brawn guy? Why not walk the Vellaikaran path and have the hero defeat the villain through sheer wit? There are dialogue that suggest this — “IAS moola IPS vela,” (IAS’ brains, IPS’ job) — but we don’t actually see that. Ram Saamy just resorts to punching and kicking everything and anything in his way. I could give this a pass if the action sequences are well choreographed and shot. After all, this is meant to be an action movie. But even the action set pieces aren’t memorable. While directors like A.R. Murugadoss (coins fight in Kaththi) and Pa. Ranjith (rain fight in Kaala) take two steps forward in terms of staging, framing and editing action sequences, Hari operates like it’s the year 2001.
This is the kinda film that has its hero absorb energy and hulk up every time he comes in contact with a police uniform. At one point, Ram Saamy rubs his face on a uniformed police officer’s shoulder to get an energy boost. I would like to have some of what Hari is smoking. And that’s the issue, isn’t it? You can ignore the lame retcons and turn a blind eye to the ridiculous premise, but how do you ignore a screenplay that’s so obtuse and moronic from top to bottom? At one point it tries to convince us that the President of India has more power than the Prime Minister of India. Not to mention, his email address is apparently ‘thepresident@gmail.com’.
How do you watch a mass movie without a single organic rousing moment? Even the “anticipated” big reveal falls flat, coming off like a cheap version of the Sathyamoorthy IPS reveal in Pokkirri. Ram Saamy delivering a punch dialogue to an IAS officer is the film’s most entertaining scene. Sorry, I meant the only entertaining scene. Saamy had a lead character who was somewhat interesting, brought to life by a young Vikram burning with desire and passion. Saamy Square has a character who is flat — Ram Saamy doesn’t even eat his idly with beer like his father, he eats it with moru — brought to life by an older Vikram on autopilot. He knows he should be in far better movies. We do too. There’s no denying’s Vikram’s natural charisma, though. Surrounding Aarusamy are supporting characters we came to care about. Circling Ram Saamy are characters we wish would just stop talking, and this includes that played by Soori and Keerthi Suresh, who have multiple laugh tracks together that will make you barf yesterday’s dinner.
Saamy was composed by Harris Jayaraj, who gave us an all-time mass background score, a great dance anthem (Thirunelveli Halwada) and a fun duet (Kalyanamthan Kattikitu) that are still being played on the radio to this day. Saamy Square is composed by Devi Sri Prasad who hasn’t produced a great Tamil soundtrack album since… the start of his career (he has made some good ones. His Santhosh Subramaniam album comes to mind). Darnaka is the standout song here, but will we remember it next week? I won’t.
And then there’s the villain, Ravana. Hari has done what no one would’ve thought possible: He brought an unwatchable performance out of Bobby Simha. I think most expected this movie to be terrible. Take your expectations and multiply it tenfold. There are movies that are made to cater to the lowest common denominator. Saamy Square is made to cater to the lowest common denominator’s pet donkey.
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Notes:
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Masala: A genre unique to Indian cinema. Larger than life, sweeping stories with a blend of drama, comedy and musical.
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Mass: A subgenre of masala, unique to South Indian cinema. Equipped with grand hero introductions, stylistic action-sequences, a middle finger to real-world physics (How is Rajnikanth able to singlehandedly beat the living crap out of 52 people? I don’t know, ask John Wick) and packs of fans ready to whistle till their lungs collapse.
