Sandai Review

Sundar C, the director known for his commercial success with low budget mass masala flicks, has now established himself as a successful commercial hero too. In his earlier two movies as hero, he has acted in sensible roles. Now in Sandai, Sundar becomes takes on a role of a full - fledged hero and delivers a mass flick with comedy, sentiment and illogical action scenes.

The film has been received well by the B and C audiences with whistles and claps. Of course, compared with the so called A class audiences, the B and C audiences are the better customers who always get their tickets for a good price and never expects complementary tickets.

May be that is the reason why Shakthi Chidambaram is always sticking to such type of masala films. Like the tag line given against the film's title, Sanda is an action thiruvizha set in a village. There is nothing new in the story and we have seen similar kind of stories in Rajini's Maappillai, Mannan and KB's Poova Thalaya.

Story:
Thangalakshmi (Nadhia) is a rich business woman living in Bangkok who has planned to marry her daughter off to Abhi (Ragini) to another rich man's son. But she wishes to comduct the marriage in Kothamangalam, her native village near Coimbatore. She wants to take revenge on her relatives and her brother (Lalu Alex) who she feels was responsible for killing her husband a former collector (Nepolean) for not giving permission to run his school.

In her village, some of the gundas try to attack Tahnagalakshmi and her daughter. Help is at hand for her when Sundar C(Kathir) comes in and saves the day. She immediately appoints him to be her daughter's bodyguard, and also appoints a personal assistant Mani (Vivek). The marriage with the Bangkok guy falls through due to Kathir and Mani's idiotic ideas. In a twist to the tale, Kathir ties the holy knot around Abhi's neck with the blessing of Thangalakshmi.

After the marriage only Kathir reveals that he is Kathiresan son of her own brother and she is her murai Maappillai. A furious Thangalakshmi decides to cancel the marriage and go back to Bangkok with her daughter. She uses Karakattakari Namitha, a glam-shell, to separate her daughter from Kathir but fails.

At the same time, Kathiresan challenges her to send Abhi to his house for 7 days, during which he will convince her of his true love and win her over. If he fails she can go back with her mother. The rest of the film is how Kathiresan wins over Abhi and also convinces his mother-in-law (with a dreamy duet too).

Plus and minuses:
The comedy scenes of Vivek and Sundar, Namitha's glamorous seduction act as Karakattakari with a low neck jacket and mini skirt will surely entertain the masses. In a few scenes, Vivek's role irritates viewers especially where he comes as Nattamai and son roles (he repeats the same role in many films including the recently released Thoondil).

Sundar C done his role well and it is sure that he will become one of the busiest action heroes for the next couple of years. Nadhiya plays an arrogant but glamorous mother-in-law. She is even dances with her son in law in a dream duet. It seems that the actress enjoying her role (whether it is cliched or not) throughout the movie.

Namitha is hot and as usual becomes as an asset to this kind of action masala movies. There is no scope for Ragini to act but tries to compete with Namitha with body show. Dheena's recycled music is loud and jarring. He has copied all the tunes from Ilayaraja's old films. He used two remixes too. One is the popular number 'Vaadi en Kappakizhange…' which is sung by Sundar C.

Once again director Shakthi Chidambaram succeeds with his typical crass masala film genre.

Verdict - Time Pass