Hari attempts to adapt tropes to the sensibilities of the modern-day audience, but the ideas he plays around with and the story he wishes to tell still belong in the 2000s
his enemy. In the present day, when Panneer becomes an MLA, he chooses the now grown-up Rathnam — Vishal as the quintessential sickle-wielding Hari hero — as his go-to man. Things take a turn when Rathnam saves a young woman named Mallika (Priya Bhavani Shankar), an aspiring medical college student, from a gang of rowdies from Andhra. We soon realise that Mallika’s father
Vedha Nayagam ( Jayaprakash) is embroiled in trouble as the nefarious land-grabbing moguls — Rayudu brothers; Beema Rayudu (Murali Sharma), Subba Rayudu (Hareesh Peradi) and Ragava Rayudu (Muthu Kumar) — are after his land.
Now, why does Rathnam go to such great lengths for a stranger? At a time when a viewer might have even forgotten the period when lms repeatedly used the idea of a doppelganger to serve up a twist, Hari shocks you. This is despite all the criticisms Saamy Square received for a similar doppelganger idea. It’s an idea that’s so absurd to think about, surely, but the situation in which it gets played out is such that you almost start giving in to what he attempts to do with it.
This is what I meant by the peculiarity in how Hari chooses to tweak some of his tropes but chooses to continue most others. Unlike any Hari lm, the hero gets a sober introduction shot, but it is followed by the typical ght sequence to show his machoness. There are ve blood-curdling action sequences — in addition to the barrage of violent action lms we have been getting — but this is also a lm with an opening song in a bar. The heroine plays a crucial role in the plot (like in Thaamirabharani or Venghai), and she once again falls for the hero for a bizarre reason. But for all that importance given in the plot, she becomes quite a unidimensional puppet to the hero.
Hari likes to send cars up in the air and we once again get a car chase sequence, but this time it is a ve-minute single-shot sequence — you do not get the desired e ect, but who thought of Hari opting for such a technique? Remember Vikram removing his sacred thread upon realising his real caste identity in Saamy Square? We get something similar here, only to serve up a ba«ing pay-o moment in a frustrating climax sequence.
And yet, as you watch the lm turn into a silly, hastily put-together product, you end up wishing it was at least just another Hari from the 2000s. For instance, most of his lms ¨esh out a strong subplot with a parent-like gure’s complicated equation with the hero; this worked even for Vishal in his previous outings with Hari, Thaamirabharani and Poojai. In Rathnam, the equation between Panneerselvam and Rathnam hardly gets explored, and instead, we get the done-to-dust “amma sentiment,”
Over-the-top melodrama, ine ective punchlines, excessive use of background score, scenes straight out of a television soap to appease “family audiences”...even when he’s trying to renew himself, the result remains as outdated as it can get. From “Naan kettavan, aana kedu kettavan illa” in 2007’s Thaamirabharani to “Naan kaasukkaga thappu panra porambokku illa, kolgai kaaga kola panra rowdy” in Rathnam, we have come a long way. Maybe it’s time for Hari to put some things to rest.
Rathnam is currently running in theatres