Kaaki Sattai (காக்கி சட்டை) is the fifth film for VJ Sivakarthikeyan as hero. The police story is directed by R. S. Durai Senthilkumar and produced by Actor Dhanush, the same combination from Sivakarthikeyan’s earlier film Ethir Neechal. Saw the movie today in Luxe Cinemas.
Till his previous film Maan Karate, Sivakarthikeyan was seen by audience as a comedy hero. He has attempted to ease into a mass hero role in Kaaki Sattai and it feels he is going in the correct direction. When I first saw the trailer of this film, I presumed it may be a remake of Kamal Haasan’s 1985 blockbuster film of the same name, luckily it turned out to be a different story. Kamal’s Kaaki Sattai was a film that set a trend for many later days cop films in Tamil including Vijay’s superhit Pokkiri, but Sivakarthikeyan’s film has no such ambitions (not yet).
The story is about how a low ranked cop Sivakarthikeyan playing a constable role takes down an international organ trafficking head. First things first. The film runs only for 2.5 Hours and not for 3+ hours like the norm in recent days. Bless the Director R.S.Durai,for not showing TASMAC and a drunken pathos song sequence played by the protagonist and his friends.
I liked the film, wife was not impressed. My liking may have been influenced by seeing lovely SriDivya in the song sequences. Cinematographer M.Sukumar who has done Mynaa, Kumki, Maan Karate in the past, has delivered brilliant camerawork for this film, on a digital screen like in Luxe Cinemas the visuals come to life. Anirudh Ravichander has done good background score throughout the film, especially during the action sequences the BGM helps by projecting heroism on Sivakarthikeyan. A life lesson from the story is that the city police commissioner’s are still bad guys, even after several decades of advise by Tamil film stars they have not reformed themselves.
All the characters in the film are cookie-cutter variety, including Prabhu as a senior cop, villain Vijay Raaz, Imman Annachi as Hero’s coworker & comedy relief, Manobala as a high class pimp & aspiring politician and Kalpana as mother. We are spared of a long climax where the hero fights hundreds of fighters, SUVs flying in air; instead we see villain being killed with Carbon Mono-Oxide and climax gets over in few minutes. Though the film is a typical Kollywood masala what I liked was it can be seen laid back and enjoyed without any expectations of a twist or turn, you may even manage to laugh at few places. That was the kind of film I felt like seeing today. I won’t be criticising it, it is not worth my time.
Kaaki-Sattai (2015)
