Raid(Tamil, Streaming on A-ha)
Starring Vikram Prabhu, Sri Divya, Ananthika Sanilkumar , Rishi Rithvik
Direced by Karthi
Rating: *
Raid, not to be confused with he sharp-witted Hindi Devgan starrer of the same name,is one of the most dim-witted , senseless and redundant cops-and-gangsters tale, so stale it stinks. If the truth be told, this film is so awful it makes us wonder if there is some catch in the presentation. I almost expected the director Karthi to pop up at some point in the presentation and say, ‘Gotcha!’
To make matters worse the storytelling is non-linear adding further confusion to an already brainless tale about a no-nonsense cop(in an all-nonsense plot) Prabhakaran(Vikram Prabhu) who wants to rid Chennai of all crime . The systematic ‘encounter’killings and their debatable ethics, don’t even cross the line of vision in this blurred blotchy brackish tale,so let’ s not even go there.
So I was telling you about Inspector Prabhakaran.He is played by Vikram Prabhu an utterly charmless non-actor who keeps getting plum roles for his cinematic lineage. What is surprising is that Karthi,a Tamil actor of considerable renown, has allowed himself to be associated with this putrid action thriller which works only if you are high on hallucinogens. For others, Raid is an unbearable ordeal.
There are sundry scruffy villains who are shown in South Indian films to be invariably of a particular skin tone and in need of a collective hosing down.I couldn’t really figure out the heaving hierarchy of villains in the plot. I doubt the writers themselves know which of the baddies belongs to which gang. There is someone they call Don Uncle(Velu Prabhakaran) whose presence as the triggering evil incubus , seems shaky . The feeling that these anti-social clowns should all be sent to the Maldives(for a physical and emotional rinse) never leaves us.
There are two girls in the stoic cop-hero’s life, one of them Venba(Sri Divya) is gunned down(in cold blood, as they say).The other Venmathi (Ananthika Sanilkumar) likes the good times. She smokes, drinks , dances(early in the morning,in plastic glasses) and gives Pokerfaced Cop a hard time.She is like Zeenat Aman in Dev Anand’s Heera Panna while our hero is like Amitabh Bachchan in Zanjeer.
No harm in aiming high.But when the endproduct is a sorry soggy stale apology of a film these references are an insult to the original.
