At a time when Tamil films are taking centre stage in world cinema with films like Amaran, Garudan, Maharaja and Kottukaali, there are films like Brother which are there simply to provide meme material.
Jayam Ravi and Priyanka Mohan head an impressive cast in Rajesh M’s latest film, Brother – a film that has been two years in the making. The supporting cast includes Bhoomika Chawla, Natty Subramaniam, Saranya Ponvannan, Rao Ramesh, Seetha, MS Bhaskar and Bayilvaan Ranganathan.
Jayam Ravi plays Karthik, a student of law whose constant scrutiny of things have frequently landed himself in trouble. After a particularly disastrous episode, his sister Anandhi (Bhumika Chawla) decides to take him to Ooty for a while, promising her parents that she would make sure that Karthik returns as a responsible young man. Unfortunately, his antics in Ooty end up bringing chaos to Anandhi’s life.
It is difficult to fathom how Ravi would have selected this outdated script and agreed to act in this stylised film that would have been outdated even in the 1980s. The characters are one-dimensional and do not grow beyond what is required of the script, using no pretence of realism or logic in doing so. The conflicts are contrived and exaggerated while the important character of Sivagurunathan (Rao Ramesh) is reduced to a caricature.
The shoddy scripting and painfully slow screenplay could have been masked by good acting performances but the superficial writing makes it impossible for any of the actors to play their role with any degree of credibility or emotive content. Ravi looks jaded and decidedly distant from his role while Priyanka Mohan has a character that is impossible to identify with. Bhumika Chawla makes the best effort but cannot grow beyond the dismal scripting. Saranya Ponvannan, attempting a different role only succeeds in being annoying to the extreme. Natty Subramaniam, who is a very talented actor, is completely neutralized by the script.
Often, when a film has poor acting and a poor script, a lively soundtrack can bring life into the screenplay, but Harris Jayaraj is unable to impress with the songs or background score.
Cinematographer Vivekanand Santhosham does not try anything innovative and most of the lighting gives the soap opera feel to the film – which, in retrospect, was probably quite apt.
Brother is a film that only die-hard fans of Jayam Ravi could dare to watch and scores 4 points out of 10.
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