Maanaadu — Tamil — Review

Tamil Cinema’s first recognized Time Loop movie ends up touching the heights above the expectations.

Venkat Prabhu’s Sci-fi Political drama ‘ Maanaadu ’ is a gamble that has gone in its favor.

The sci-fi genre is something that has not been explored much in Tamil cinema and can easily go wrong at the box office. Also, Silambarasan’s recent outings have nothing much to say. With all the ‘What If’ questions on the back of the head, the team delivered a really good movie, with decent making and incredible writing.

Plot: The Protagonist of this film Abdul Khaliq gets stuck in a time loop and urges to find a way to escape from it.

The first 20 minutes of the movie seem very cliche and artificial. With that, the audience gets a fear of wastage of money. But when the movie starts pacing to their main plot, it does justice for the first 20 minutes and hooks the audience.

Usually, in a time loop movie, we know that the incidents that have just happened take place again and again. And at a certain point in time, the audience may get bored of the repetition of scenes. But this is where the writing has played a crucial role. At the same time, it's the editor who cuts the shot scene, loyal to the screenplay, and it is an intense work for an editor in this movie. The editor gets his credits here.

Silambarasan and SJ Surya are the ones to look out for when it comes to acting. Silambarasan has done neat work, up to the requirement. But it's SJ Surya who flies high with insanity with his acting. Every scene that involves SJ Surya is a moment to remember. Pure entertainment. Other actors like Kalyani Priyadarshan, Premji, Karunakaran have played important characters in the movie, and they too have portrayed their characters pretty well.

Yuvan Shankar Raja is one of the backbones of this movie. This movie has got only one song to it, and that only song has been a good listen as well as a good dance number. Beautifully picturized. The background score was more enjoyable. But there are a few sequences, where the music felt a bit cheesy and had high EDM beats.

But, it also lags in many places. The cinematographer Richard M. Nathan has done a good job with his visuals. But the movie lacks a rich look for a Sci-Fi which gives a tone of a commercial film. Also, there were many overused Tamil cliche shots for all the car chase sequences which gave a feel of watching a Tamil Serial car chase. Of course, the concept is pretty complex but still, the making could have been better. Also to be mentioned, the VFX work was a huge crap. Let it be explosions or a glass breaking into shards or bloodshed.

Overall, could have been a masterpiece. Still, all the negatives are forgettable, as moments to enjoy are higher. Definitely a good watch. Don't miss it theaters.

Ratings: 8/10