Rajathandhiram (A Royal Con) - Heist with some taste!

Currently it's quite a discernable trend in Kollywood with films being marketed more than the budget with which they are being made in order to get a grand opening. This is largely due to the fact that the collections in the first few days for a film contributes to more than 75% of its lifetime theatrical revenue. This essentially means that producers and distributors with deep pockets and political clout fight it out tooth and nail to get their film’s slot on a given Friday or on a D-day followed by a long weekend. Therefore this trend allows even a film with a below average content to likely get a much better opening than the ones that are made with superior content but with lesser known stars and backed by small-time production houses. The recent victim of this discernable trend was ‘Rajathandhiram’ which managed to get some good word of mouth, but didn’t feature stars or didn't have that firepower behind its production house to market itself aggressively which resulted in the movie sinking into the abyss with some shrill cries that went unheard.

This con masala, though was made on the lines of last year’s ‘Sathuranga Vettai’, had a refreshing heist drama spun around a bunch of few ordinary conmen who were allowed to pull off an extraordinary con game thanks to an intelligently laced screenplay with an engaging narrative. A small time con trio (Veera, Ajai Prasath & Darbuka Siva) are made to carry out a heist at a jewellery shop that is owned by the wicked and influential Azhagappan (Pattiyal K.Shekar) by Sethu Madhavan (Ilavarasu) and Dharmaraj (Aadukalam Naren) for settling the latter’s personal scores with the businessman. The underpinnings and the thrills were narrated with an edge of the seat screenplay.

Veera as the spearhead of the con trio slipped into the role with a toned down performance that was so cool and natural. Darbuka Siva was the show stealer among the three with his instant one liner repartee and occasional buffoonery. Regina was thankfully not the typical dumb headed heroine, but had a decent role that was easy on the screenplay. Naren and Ilavarasu’s roles added meat to the supporting cast while Pattiyal Shekar as the villain was menacing.

The screenplay gave room for more mind games than any physical altercations. Everytime when a step towards the big heist is about to be pulled off the audience were left with a bunch of puzzles that gets solved immediately after the heist is pulled off and that was the interesting part. It was like watching a magic show where the audience are kept in the dark on what is to be pulled out next from the magician’s hat. Especially towards the climax the twist in the tale was so convincingly brought out that we are made to sympathize with the baddies for being so cruelly conned with simple but effective psychological techniques.

These sort of movies have to be given bigger canvases and should have been adopted by some of the bigger production houses and re-released in order to foster the belief that content can only be the king rather than big stars or cheap commercial elements. I wouldn’t categorize this movie under the neo-noir section or the avant-garde one as well, but this would certainly find a place in a cinephile’s psyche as that of a good cinema with an engaging narrative that was wasted by the commercial sensibilities of the Kollywood businessmen.

Verdict: Recommended

Rating: 3 / 5