Saroja - Movie Review

After roaring success with Chennai-28, Venkat Prabhu is back with Saroja. He is actually back with a bang in Saroja. Yes, Saroja is a sure shot winner.

Saroja is all about a foursome (SPB Charan, Mirchi Shiva, Premji and Chinni) are friends who plan a trip to Hyderabad to watch India-Pakistan ODI match. They plan to go by a caravan arranged by Shiva. The journey starts happily but faces a big tragedy in the middle.

The journey is disrupted as a tanker lorry mishap on the road. Shiva comes up with an idea of reaching Hyderabad through a shortcut. Midway in the shortcut, they hit a man (Bose Venkat) who is trying to escape from a rowdy gang. They take Bose Venkat into their Van as an attempt to aid him. The gang catches Bose Venkat and shoots him to death. This murder is witnessed by SPB Charan and Shiva. The gang decides to kill both the Witnesses. They try to escape. Thus a racy screenplay starts.

The foursome later comes to know that the gang is also involved in kidnapping the daughter (Vega) of Viswanathan (Prakash Raj). The foursome makes up their mind to rescue Vega from the gang. How do they plan and succeed? That forms the rest of the story. There is an unexpected twist at the end. Premji and Shiva keep the movie alive and entertaining.

First bouquet to Venkat Prabhu for making a movie with a good action screenplay mixed with right amount of fun. Next in the line is Yuvan Shankar Raja for his amazing background score. His music is the backbone of the movie. Then, the cameraman Shakthi Saravanan. He has done a fabulous job. He has captured even the dark night scenes very clearly. Last but not least, Premji. He put the whole theatre in laughter whenever he appeared on screen.

Prakash Raj, Jayaram (as policeman), Sampath (gang leader), Vega all fit the bill. Rest of the actors of Chennai28 team also appears in cameo roles in the movie. That’s a good idea VP.

On looking at the above said points, please do not come to a conclusion that VP has come up with an innovative and trend stting story. Here is the biggest negative point of the movie.The one half of the story is unoriginal. The whole concept of Tour to Hyderabad, Caravan, Foursome, Van hitting a man, heroes witnessing the execution, hiding themselves in the building, seeking the beggars’ help, are all the Tamil version of the movie “Judgment Night”. Dittoed. The only thing VP has done is, he has combined this half with a usual Kidnapping story and has added enough fun.

Had VP come out with an original script, I would have been very happy watching the movie. As I have already watched Judgment Night, I could easily predict most of the scenes.Since most of the Tamil audiences wouldn’t have watched Judgment Night, Saroja is certainly a fresh script for them.Positives and Negatives of the movie:

Plus points:
Racy screenplay
Premji
Yuvan’s BGM
Cameraman Shakthi Saravanan

Minus:
Unoriginal Script is the big minus point
The twist in the climax is utterly cliché.

Overall a commendable job from the team.

Star Rating: Saroja deserves 4 stars. Inspiration takes 1 star from it. So only 3 Stars.

Regards,
Vinith