Sipaayi (Kannada)
Director: Rajath Mayee
Cast: Siddharth Mahesh, Sruthi Hariharan, Achyuth Kumar, Sanchari Vijay
If you are a crime reporter, it is not enough to just report a crime, you must also prevent the crime. This means you can thrash and even kill the bad guys you are writing about. This rather problematic message is what Rajath Mayee’s Sipaayi, a film dedicated to journalists, conveys .
Siddu (Siddharth Mahesh), an undercover journalist, enters a crime syndicate in an attempt to rid the city of its mafia. He not only sends videos of the gang’s activities to his news channel but also beats up and kills the goons.
In a vigilante film, which is what Sipaayi aspires to be, one expects the protagonist to take the law into their hands. But generally, there is a definitive motivation for his or her actions. In Sipaayi, one has absolutely no idea why Siddu does what he does. In fact, the film is narrated so poorly that it is only in the second half that we even learn that he is an undercover journalist.
Siddu is projected as a do-gooder with no background. He exists in a vacuum because the filmmaker leaves out institutions of the judiciary and the police, to name just a few. The tagline of the film — An unknown soldier — is used here rather literally.
His father (Achyuth Kumar), who is also a journalist, initially argues with Siddu about the real role of a reporter, but this discussion is soon abandoned and the father-son duo team up to end the ‘mafia-rule’.
The film could have gained some strength if the director had taken the effort to research crime syndicates. The ‘mafia’, according to the filmmaker, is just this one gang which comprises the most evil of them all. This gang does all the bad things right from real estate hafta to drug supply and trafficking of women.
Using stereotypes of good and bad, the filmmaker tries to piece together ‘a good guy versus bad guys’ plot. But what he ends up with is a series of action sequences separated by songs.
In fact, Siddu could have been anybody as long as he got to beat up some generic bad guys. If one has to describe the plot of the film, it is: a good guy beats up the bad guys. Then, a few minutes later, he beats up some more bad guys.
A significant portion of the film is dedicated to Siddharth, who is making his debut. Each action sequence is accompanied with amplified sound, close-ups and predictable slow-motion sequences. A love story is added to the plot with Divya (Sruthi Hariharan), a college student. It follows a predictable format punctuated with ample songs along the way.
Siddharth is unconvincing. Sruthi and Achyuth Kumar try to shoulder the film as much as they can. Sanchari Vijay as Siddu’s friend is a talent that is thoroughly wasted.
