Rocky Movie Review

Arun Matheswaran’s Rocky comes off as a film that believes more in its craft than its cause, as it gets its aesthetics and technicalities on point right from the first shot but is pretty much empty in terms of its storyline.

Rocky has a very simplistic story where a man who comes out of jail after 17 years has to mend back his ways and bring together the little pieces of his family that he has left. Arun Matheswaran takes this one liner and gives it a very arthouse treatment, making it on line with the numerous Korean and European blockbusters that we have seen. The film has lots going for in terms of its visuals, which have loads of great blocking techniques, tracking shots and single takes. Where Rocky impresses big time is in its presentation, which is unflinching in terms of the violence that it depicts on screen. The pitch-perfect stunt choreography along with the lighting techniques and the way in which Arun gives birth to his action sequences is the strong point of the film, which dilly-dallies in terms of its emotional value which does not land until the end.

The film has a menacing performance from Vasanth Ravi, who is really good in the titular role. The actor proves himself with another superb performance after his debut in Taramani, and exhibits great fluency in the action scenes.

Watch out for veteran Bharathiraja’s superb show, which is yet another example of how good he is as an actor, even at this age. The cast is filled with names such as Raveena Ravi and others, who do a good job in totality.

Rocky has phenomenal technical values, with Shreyaas Krishna’s top-notch camerawork making the wide shots look as gorgeous as possible. Arun’s vision would have not have beared fruit without this level of effort from Shreyaas, and it also gets fantastic support from Darbuka Siva who continues to be the dark horse after showing amazing versatility in his films so far.

On the whole, Rocky is a painstaking action drama where the stunt sequences go big, but the emotional beats dont land so well.  Rocky Movie Review by Siddarth Srinivas

Rocky Movie Review Rating: 3/5