Director: Shakti Soundar Rajan
Cast: Arya, Sayyeshaa, Sathish, Karunakaran
Teddy is the latest offering from director Shakti Soundar Rajan, who has delivered some ambitious projects with impressive results in the past (Naanayam, Naaigal Jaakirathai, Tik Tik Tik etc). The film stars Arya in the lead, whose last film Magamuni (I’m not counting Kaappaan where he only played a supporting role) was critically acclaimed and was a massive box office hit.
Given this team up, I was really looking forward to something fresh and experimental. Step in Teddy- the animated, talking Teddy Bear character that shares screen space with Arya for the bulk of the film and aims to supply this quirkiness.
The story itself revolves around Sri (played by Sayyeshaa) and Shiva (Arya). Sri is a college student and a photographer who’s been abducted by members of a medical crime syndicate. Shiva on the other hand is a genius and a geek with a photographic memory. Born with a rare disorder, he remembers every detail he’s ever come across since his birth. At this point, the film also introduces us to its two core ideas: soul transmigration and out of body experiences. One thing leads to another, and Sri’s soul gets transmigrated into a large teddy bear toy, bringing it rather comically to life. Sri, now having taken the form of the Teddy Bear, also gets providentially acquainted with Shiva. The rest of the story follows Sri and Shiva’s journey around the world as they aim to rescue Sri’s original body back and take the crime syndicate down.
The screenplay lets Teddy down big time. The writing is quite ordinary and unimaginative. For a film that aims to be quirky and inventive, it settles down rather quickly into a stereotypical Tamil film template, and becomes extremely predictable scene after scene. I mean, all the build up over the first 45 minutes about transmigration and OOEs ultimately leads us to…an organ smuggling syndicate! In Tamil cinema, organ theft has basically become to the thriller genre the equivalent of organic farming to the ‘farmer saviour’ genre (trademarked by Kollywood). Both these themes have now been harvested enough!
About near the middle of the film, the locales suddenly shift to Azerbaijan. This is when we realize we’re dealing with a global crime mafia here (still with a Tamil speaking Indian boss). I mean, they could have filmed in Aminjikarai and it wouldn’t have made a lot of difference. There are over the top action sequences, which to be fair are decently choreographed. The saddest thing about the film is that Arya actually looks the part during all these scenes. He totally pulls off the ‘geek’ demeanour and looks fit and sharp. But since the story isn’t, it doesn’t really matter.
As the film veers towards its climax, you end up clutching at straws in order to find something good to say about it. At almost 2 hours and 15 minutes, it’s also a long and tedious watch. It might have a huge talking teddy bear as its pivotal character, but only ends up taking the stuffing out of you!
Rating: 1.5/5
