Santhanam’s latest has an exciting plot but is let down by tepid writing -

R Srinivasa Rao’s Sabapathy stroke a chord in my memory of Mr. Denton on Doomsday, an episode from Rod Serling’s cult conventional TV sequence, The Twilight Zone. Inside the latter, future, personified as a wierd salesman, saves a former gunslinger’s life from energy alcoholism and a fatally dangerous duel by giving him a gun and a tiny bottle of magical potion. Future, which is commonly blamed by folks for his or her misfortunes, lends a serving at hand to a fallen man.

In Sabapathy, too, future is personified. Future on this film is a VFX creation — a person with a longish beard and a baritone voice who sits in a dimly lit room and does uncommon points like reversing the collapse of a card fort. He, just like the salesperson in The Twilight Zone episode, intervenes inside the lifetime of the struggling and stammering Sabapathy (Santhanam) to make it larger.

Nonetheless, in distinction to The Twilight Zone episode, which readily evokes philosophical contemplation (as most The Twilight Zone episodes do), Sabapathy, ensuing from its ineffectual screenplay, leaves you with that feeling of showering in lukewarm water on a moist, chilly morning. If solely the water had been hotter. Because of the plot of Sabapathy, although not absolutely novel, is steady: a naive good man, struggling in life, will get a suitcase full of cash belonging to a corrupt politician. That's the goal the place Future decides to intervene in his life. Nevertheless the build-up to this point and its aftermath are tiresome.

The writing is to be blamed. The assemble as a lot because the intermission, the place Sabapathy finds the suitcase, is tiresome. Quite a lot of the scenes between Santhanam and MS Bhaskar work to an extent ensuing from their performances. And, Cooku With Comali-fame Pugazh, who performs Santhanam’s ‘quarter’-loving good buddy of Santhanam on his big-screen debut, delivers a variety of one-liners. Nevertheless barring a variety of such moments, no traces stick.

The tone of the movie fluctuates wildly inside the second half. For a while, it needs to be a madhouse caper with many people chasing after the an identical object, resulting in comical accidents. Nevertheless a variety of moments later, it's going to get all motivational.

Nevertheless it was refreshing to see Santhanam not growing with a one-liner or a retort every two minutes he’s on show display screen. What Sivakarthikeyan did in Doctor, Santhanam does in Sabapathy. Collaborating in an ungainly, small-town man with a stammer, Santhanam, for primarily essentially the most half, doesn’t remind you of Santhanam. Moreover refreshing to see was the film not veering away from the plot, except for an pointless fight sequence and songs. All this ends in a Sabapathy that isn’t prolonged…nevertheless had the writing been stronger, it might have been additional than merely watchable.