Raayan - Bloody beat

Raayan

Tamil / Action / Drama

145 mins 

Prime Video

Viewer Guide :- Extremely violent, Plenty of Swearing, 

Dhanush is one my favourite actors of his generation. His arresting screen presence, dialogue, body language - a complete performer. I do my best to watch most of his movies, inspite of the reviews (i even watched Captain Miller! on fast forward mode). This one is also directed by him and  it has music and score by A.R. Rahman.

The movie as such is a template revenge drama. Dhanush has made a few of these - Pudupettai, Asuran, Karnan, Vada Chennai at various stages in his career. Here, he is Kattavaraaayan / Raayan) who is the patriach in his family of  two younger brothers  Muthuvel (Sandeep Kishan), Manickavel (Kalidas Jayaram) and a sister Durga, (Dushara Vijayan). 

Typical setting and plot - Two gangsters Sethu (S J Suryah) and Durai (Saravanan), with a 25-year-old family feud . A senior policeman Sargunan (Prakash Raj) who wants to  "clean up the city". Raayan wants to stay away from it all, his brothers get involved,  naturally there is a threat to his darling sister and well..we know the rest.

Dhanush, as the writer, tries to complicate a straightforward plot, leaving viewers feeling mentally exhausted and wishing the film would end sooner!

As a director though, he shows great promise. 

• Firstly, It is not an ego trip for him. He does not hog the screen and is one among the characters. 
• The staging of the scenes /sequences elevates the movie 
• A sequence harks back to his famous father in law's (?) scene at the medical college in Baasha.
• The pre interval when he shows up as the "Raayan"  in Durai's den. The action choreography is darn good.
• The brother and sister having a hot tea after slicing down a key adversary!
• The climatic "Adangaada Asuran da" song - a stunning composition by A.R.Rahman and choreographed brilliantly by Prabhu Deva, featuring the principal cast dancing on the night of "Bhogi".  The premise of the song is unique. Dancing as they are while in reality baying for each other's blood

The performances are uniformly excellent.  SJ Suryah gives his fans the patented comic villain outburst. Among others, there is also Muthu's saucy girlfriend Meghala ( Aparna Balamurali) - who is delightful in the time that she gets, including the bouncy "Water packet" song. Prakash raj can sleep walk through such roles. Dushara Vijayan is very good.  Sandeep Kishan is cool while he can be.

A. R. Rahman gives another racy background score ( not the gold standard of   VTK, but still pretty good). " "O Raaya " will haunt you on multiple listens. The cinematography (mostly low light) is very good, with plenty of long shots which are really well done!

If you are a Dhanush fan and also enjoy violent dramas with just a spunky treatment of the age old revenge saga - this one is for you - otherwise you can choose to stay away.