Maanaadu Movie Review

What is a time loop? More than 90% of our audiences wouldn’t be able to give out a proper answer when asked about the definition of the concept. And now, Venkat Prabhu has gone the long hop to deliver a convincing and superlative entertainer in Maanaadu, which takes the concept of the time loop and keeps things going in a fresh and fun way until the end.

STR plays Abdul Khaaliq, a man who lands from Dubai to attend his friend’s wedding, only to be pulled into a game of hide and seek with the local ACP Dhanushkodi (SJ Suryah). STR’s purpose and the scenario that takes place in a political ‘maanaadu’ intertwine in many ways in this time loop film that does away with the style of a thriller and goes to the everyday commercial format, resulting in a fun film.

Venkat Prabhu’s smart writing is the main reason why Maanaadu is a winner – he makes interesting turns in his narrative and keeps the momentum flowing with clever twists that keep popping up at regular intervals. There’s no dearth of comedy and action either, as the scenarios keep coming in without looking too forced.

Maanaadu’s specificity is superb, as the film has a high level of clarity throughout and is not confusing at all for even the layman watching it.

Silambarasan cannot ask for a better comeback here, as the film offers him everything on a plate and has solid stretches to portray both his acting skills and his emotional beats too. The film has a strong adversary in the form of SJ Suryah, who does a fabulous job with an over-the-top yet enjoyable performance as the cop. There is so much to like in his antics, which work out superbly from the very first entry. The film has a good support cast that consists of actors such as SA Chandrasekhar, Kalyani Priyadarshan, Premgi Amaren and so on, however, the best of the lot would be YG Mahendran who also owns a special sequence to himself.

The film is technically solid, with neat cinematography by Richard M Nathan and an impressive score by Yuvan Shankar Raja. Without sticking to a single tune, the composer rules with a splendid background score that enables different themes for different stretches in the film. Editor Praveen KL’s excellent editing is the backbone of the film and would have been very confusing if not for the neatness he maintains in his work.

On the whole, Maanaadu is a superb entertainer that does the trick well and is sure to get the cash registers ringing for the next few days.  Maanaadu Movie Review by Siddarth Srinivas

Maanaadu Movie Review Rating: 3.5/5