Udayanidhi Stalin’s latest outing Saravanan Irukka Bhayamaen has all the elements of a mass entertainer — comedy, love, horror and action. But none of it works. The comedy is crass, the horror makes you squirm, love is non-existent and the action is terrible.
The story is wafer thin. Like most Tamil film heroes, Saravanan (Udayanidhi) is a jobless youth who roams around on a two-wheeler with his bunch of friends. Kalyanam (Soori), his uncle, aspires for a political career but due to an error committed by a drunk photographer, Saravanan ends up as the local head of a national party and this upsets his uncle.
Kalyanam is left with no option but to leave the country to take up a petty job in Dubai.
His other uncle’s daughter Thaenmozhi (Regina Cassandra) returns to town after many years and quite naturally, Saravanan is besotted with her.
In the meantime, Kalyanam returns and awaits an opportunity to teach a lesson or two to Saravanan. Whether Saravanan succeeds in his love and whether Kalyanam manages to put Saravanan in his place, is narrated in the most boring fashion.
Saravanan Irukka … has roped in almost all comedians in the industry — Madhumitha, Robot Shankar, Madan Bob, Yogi Babu, Manobala, Chaams — and should have resulted in a laugh riot.
But the film falls flat. It’s like watching various randomly chosen episodes from the popular live comedy TV show, Kalakka Povadhu Yaaru .
Uday, who gave a neat performance in his earlier film, Manithan , fails to impress. His fans who were howling and hooting initially, walked out of the theatre silently. Soori has to change his style of comedy and reinvent himself to get to the next level.
Director Ezhil’s strength is comedy. But even that doesn’t work here at all.
