Sabari Review

By: Settu Shankar
Monday, March 26, 2007
The entire media has tried to establish the movie as another Ramana; the hero of the movie, the 'Captain' himself is satisfied with the way the film has been made; the producer went ot the extent of comparing this film with the magnum opus of the year, Sivaji. But the out come is pathetic. It is not qualified to compete even with a third grade film. It is none other than the Captain starrer movie Sabari!

Before its release, the Captain said this will be one of the best films in his career. But after having seen the preview of the same, many have said that Sabari is one of the worst movies in Vijayakanth's carrier.

It is high time that Vijaykanth takes care of the scripts for his films. Whether it is Vallarasu or Vanchinathan, Sudesi or Sabari, the theme of the story is the same. The audiences are getting bored with his tailor made role. His latest one Sabari is the best example in bad movie making, and wasting the money of a producer!

The team has not taken much pain for novelty in the story. They just copied a few scenes from old Tamil movies and tried to portray them colourfully. But finally it looks like a gypsy coat with a lot of patches.

Dr Sabarivasan (Vijaykanth) is a noted cardiologist working at the Chennai government hospital. The man is upright, morally correct and is always ready to help the poor and the needy. At the same time, he is no Gandhian, and uses his brawn on the bad guys and also believes in an eye for an eye theory.

Two women- Nandini (Jyothirmayi) and a house surgeon (Malavika) are attracted to him because of his kind nature and power. But finally he chooses Nandini over the house surgeon as his wife, after a few song sequences with each one of them.

The bad guys are loud, leering and have no human quality in them. They are Vajravel (Pradeep Rawat) and his long haired brother- in -law (Aryan) and a bad Industrialist who always tries to influence the government (Pitamahan Mahadevan). As predictable, Sabari runs into them as they cause much bloodshed in the city. The angry crusader takes them on, and finally eliminates them in a long drawn out climax. To rub more salt into the wounds of the poor audience, another villie (Aishwarya) character in the name of Vajravel's wife makes an entry.

What can I say about Vijaykanth's performance? There is nothing new to him vis-a vis the viewers. Wherever wrong things occur and injustice happens, the captain appears unwarrantedly like the lord Krishna.There is hardly any logic behind such appearances of 'The Lord'. But the director thought of Vijayakanth to be bigger than even lord Krishna. In many scenes, the the Director turns up as the propaganda secretary of Vijayakanth's Party. Here is a sample... Seeing the hardship of refugees at Mandapam, he says, "Those who saw this earlier had come just to watch. I have come to remove your hardship. Believe in me."

Generally, cell phones are not allowed in the operation theaters. But in this film, Vijayakanth... sorry Dr.Sabary conducts an operation under the lights of cell phones! Both the heroines, Jothirmayee and the sexy Malavika look like set properties in this film.

There is plenty of blood and gore, punch lines, flying kicks and songs shot in exotic foreign locales. But sadly, director Suresh has no story to tell and has needlessly stretched the movie for nearly three hours.

Sabari is the ultimate test of patience for its viewers!