"Sathru" Movie Review: Naveen Nanjundan's Directorial Debut Is Unremarkable

Bindhiya Nhi|Mar 13, 2019

Sathru is the debut of Naveen Najundan as the director. It has a good beginning, but later everything seems to be unpleasant.

Sathru

Director: Naveen Nanjundan
Cast: Kathir, Srushti Dange and Lagubaran
Rating: 2/5

Sathru marks the debut of Naveen Nanjundan as a director in the Tamil industry. The movie has a promising beginning with a quick introduction of Kathir's lead role. He plays as a reckless sub-inspector who wants to control things in his own way. It does not matter to him whether his superior officer is annoyed with his attitude or not. He just wants to carry out his tasks.

Lagubaran also plays the notorious leader (Prabhakaran) of a gang which kidnaps children for ransom. When Kathir has to work on a case related to Prabhakaran, they start to uncover each other's secret for the rest of the movie.

Despite a good opening, the story seems to be more predictable right after the moment Prabhakaran starts to revenge for the death of his gang members. As the story is unfolded, it could be better if Naveen Nanjundan put in more suspense and thrilling scenes to keep the viewers excited. However, the action scenes are poorly done, and the movie fails to create a big impact as expected.

A still from Sathru official trailer

It is quite a cliché when it comes to a personal matter between a policeman and a villain in these movies. The story of Prabhakaran and Kathir is fairly good, but not as thrilling as it should be.

Kathir has brilliant performances with other movies including Kirumi or Sigai. However, this heroic character in Sathru just doesn't work well. He seems to struggle with his police role and his performance cannot impress the audiences.

Sathru Official Trailer

Lagubaran has a few breathtaking scenes but later becomes dull when the Sathru slowly comes to an end. It's understandable that as a gang leader, he needs to be loud. Nevertheless, he makes the audiences feel uncomfortable when he always uses his unbearable loud voice to scream at other characters. If he has a chance to do it again with another skilful director, he might make it more convincing.

Sathru is the first movie of Naveen Nanjundan as a director but he does not do it right. In a long list of Tamil police movies nowadays, the movie sadly becomes unremarkable for the audiences.