A lot of goodness in South Indian cinema – with perhaps the exception of films from Kerala – gets eroded because of the deafening background score. Dialogues and the finer nuances of the work are lost in the din, and often the movie begins to look boringly unimpressive. Antony Bhagyaraj’s (Hero, Annette) latest foray into cinema, Siren, is a simple revenge story with a life convict and a young woman cop holding centre court.
A rather wooden Jayam Ravi essays Thilagan, an ambulance driver, who is devastated to find his mute wife, Jennifer (Anupama Parameswaran), murdered. It is not very clear why this has happened, but the three men guilty of this horrific crime – as we learn later – are walking free, when Thilagan makes it his life’s mission to play vigilante.
Policewoman Nandhini (Keerthi Suresh) is bent on cornering Thilagan, who after spending several years in prison for a murder he did not commit, comes out on parole ostensibly to meet his young daughter. But the cop guesses that he has an ulterior motive to be out. What then follows is a cat-and-mouse game with Nandhini trying to get him, and Thilagan managing to be a step ahead of her as he goes about his nefarious business.
What seems utterly implausible is that he even hoodwinks the shadow policeman, Velankanni, (Yogi Babu), appointed to guard Thilagan. Comedy – courtesy Yogi – is another bane of Tamil cinema – and it sticks out like a sore thumb in what is here a serious thriller. The scenes with Yogi seem juvenile and draw our attention away from the cream of the plot – which is a series of murders.
This is not all. The casting seems terribly unimaginative. Keerthi hardly fits into the mould of a cop, and maybe, Samuthirakani, who essays Deputy Superintendent of Police, Nagalingam, would have been ideal here. Instead, he is turned into a bad guy.
Some writers have described Siren as a family entertainer. Really! The movie has a lot of blood flowing and some of the sequences are scary. I do not even understand why it has not been given an Adults Only certificate.
And now the moot point. Will Siren come hooting loudly? I saw it in a swanky, centrally located theatre in Chennai. There were just 15 of us for the inaugural show. And with the word of mouth probably unflattering, Siren may not come all blazing. Obviously, films need to be focussed: in a serious subject like Siren, there is no place for silly comedic stuff and garish songs and dances. These distract us from the core idea, which is murder and revenge.