Director: Arvindh Srinivasan
Cast: Arulnithi, Madhubala, Achyuth Kumar, Chetan, Kaali Venkat, Smruthi Venkat
You could call Dejavu a film of two halves. The first half is dedicated to the creation of an intriguing set up. Subramani (Achyuth Kumar) is a fiction writer who claims whatever he writes materializes as true events in real life. He even files a police complaint that criminals from his stories, who end up getting caught in the real life recreations, call and threaten him.
Nobody believes him initially of course, but a fateful turn of events brings all naysayers to his doorstep. The daughter of the Director General of Police (DGP) gets kidnapped and it turns out that this incident is an exact replay of a story Subramani is working on. The DGP Asha Pramod (Madhubala) doesn’t buy this though and thinks Subramani is a criminal himself who’s toying with the law. An undercover cop Vikram Kumar (Arulnithi) is roped in by her to investigate the case and rescue her daughter.
The first half is pulsating and suspenseful. The audience is left playing a guessing game and this involves guessing the very genre of the film itself. Are we dealing with a supernatural force here or is this a just a cleverly framed attempt at a crime? The scenes play out as a police procedural as Vikram and his team follow up on clues and interrogate suspects. The writing is sharp and witty, with the scenes involving Achyuth Kumar and Kaali Venkat (who plays a constable) deserving special mention. The first half ends with a cliffhanger and you can’t wait for the film to resume post the interval.
The second half is where things go off tangent a little bit. We start getting revelations about the plot and we realize that things are way more convoluted than initially suspected. Some of these revelations could be classified as neat twists, for instance the figurative skeletons that are unearthed from the DGP’s closet. Others though seem too far fetched and stick out like a sore thumb. The problem with contrived and implausible twists is that it becomes difficult to keep the audience invested in the story and they start growing distant. This is the malaise the second half of Dejavu suffers from too.
Arulnithi has fantastic screen presence and shoulders the film even through a weak second half. In fact, the biggest dejavu I got was how this was another Arulnithi starrer whose title starts with the letter D (Demonte Colony, D block, Dejavu). He even has a film called Diary lined up for release next month. But for what it’s worth, even if some of these films are hit and miss, his choice of scripts is surely Different.
Overall rating: 2.5/5
