Adanga Maru (2018)

Adanga Maru: Directed by Karthik Thangavel. With Jayam Ravi, Raashi Khanna, Ponvannan, Babu Antony. A sincere cop suspended from the department for locking horns with a few influential people in the society, starts taking revenge against those who finished off his dear ones.

“Jayam Ravi. Say what you will about his earlier film choices being remakes or below average ventures. The man has shown to persevere despite his lack of dumdaar vocals usually heard in most crime thrillers. After Ajith Kumaru0026#39;s cop act in YENNAI ARINTHAAL (2015), hereu0026#39;s another cop thriller that entertains and keeps you glued in from start to finish.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eLike all crime thrillers, thereu0026#39;s a major arc that acts a common thread between the corrupt department and the messiah cop himself. Unlike what weu0026#39;ve seen umpteen times starting with Atlee/Vijay starrer THERI u0026amp; the recently released Rohit Shettyu0026#39;s SIMMBA is that the messiahu0026#39;s themselves fret and frolick around the first half with their love interests, bumbling comedy (if you call Yogi Babu, Rajendran comedians, no judgement) and all around the verbal diahrrea claiming police should be A,B,C, 1,2 3. This is followed by over-the-top heroism, dialogue-baazi, songs that act as speed breakers (especially in the latter-half of the film) and finally a punch-statement/moral to wrap up the film. Adanga Maru does away with this to an extent.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWhile the first half starts ordinarily, the film takes its leisure to setup the whou0026#39;s who of the story and carefully places one circumstance after another to get the viewer hooked instead of exhausting them with aforementioned antics that say a big star can get away with (or rather blind-sided by his loyal fans.) The intro and love songs while functional, could have been trimmed and limited to just promo songs for the film instead of be included for the feature film.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBut once the pre-interval scenes come into the play, the film doesnu0026#39;t linger further and jet-speeds on from the start of the second half all the way into the finish line without throwing everything at once at the viewer. The cat and mouse scenes with Ravi and Sampath are the highlight and I shall not reveal anything more. The film rests on Ravi and only he can do such roles unlike the current crop of heroes in Tamil Cinema. This is also Sampathu0026#39;s best til date and itu0026#39;s refreshing to see him not going into usual villany histrionics as seen in the past.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eDear Atlee, Rohit Shetty/Team Simmba, THIS is how you make a taut police thriller without being flamboyant, preachy and over-the-top.”