Jackson Durai Movie Review

July 1, 2016

2 minutes read

Review Overview

Performances & Plot

Narration

Technical Aspects and Music

Watchable, novel horror fare

Overall, Jackson Durai works well in the first half with its wits and scares at right proportions. What falls flat is the not-so-gripping 2nd half that could have been brought structured by writers Aravind Devaraj & Dharanidhran, who took care of the screenplay. On the whole, Jackson Durai is a decent one-time watchable fare for its novel attempt in the horror genre.

Cast: Sathyaraj, Sibiraj, Bindhu Madhavi, Zachary Coffin, Karunakaran, Motta Rajendran, Yogi Babu & others

Art Direction: TN Kabilan

Cinematography: Yuvaraj S

Editing: Vivek Harshan

Music: Siddharth Vipin

Stunts: Vimal Rambo

Story: Aravind Devaraj

Screenplay: Aravind Devaraj & Dharanidharan

Dialogues & Directed by: Dharanidharan

Produced by: Sri Green Productions

Distribution: Sri Thenandal Films

Release Date: 01-07-2016

Run Time: 02:14:00

The father-son duo Sathyaraj & Sibiraj has joined together for few films over the last decade and now, they have reunited for Jackson Durai now with K-Town’s trending genre, Horror/Comedy.

Jackson Durai cannot be claimed as an out and out horror story; it is certainly mixed with a lot of comical moments and has worked out well. Sibiraj appears as Sathya, a cop, well known for his failures, on a mission to a remote village called Ayanapuram. The village is totally shutdown after 9 PM owing to some myths which will be investigated by Sibiraj.

The first half of the film is totally engaging with fear moments and there are plenty of reasons to laugh out loud, be it Yogi Babu, Karunakaran and Sibiraj, they all have mixed it well. As Sibiraj drives into the village he meets Bindu Madhavi, daughter of the village president Shanmuga Sundaram and falls in love with her.

In the second half, early during the British rule a person named Jackson is revealed to be very tough and ruthless. His portions make up for a decent second half, which is stirred by the inimitable Motta Rajendran who comes in as Surlee aka Bradlee who looks terror by appearance and funny with his body language. The scenes involving Jackson and Sathyaraj in the second half are demonstrated with little patriotism, adding a good feel of periodic age.

Major credits go to the Art Director TN Kabilan & team, who managed to mount believable sets/props that aid in giving the perfect mood for the film’s plot. Technically, the film is good without any over-the-top VFX & manipulative sounds.

On the performance front, Sibiraj as a lead gets the maximum time in the screen and justified his role neatly. Though the flashback portions are hardly 15 mins and above, Sathyaraj & co manage to turn around the attention of audiences in the short time frame given. Sathyaraj as a revenge seeking ghost is fine, but the impact isn’t palpable since it falls flat on the writing side. Bindhu Madhavi as love interest to Sibi has no better screen value, whereas Karunakaran and Yogi Babu do their job well as always.