Gethu, directed by Thirukumaran, was billed as a crime-thriller, with villains ranging from international goons to local thugs. But such illusions are put to rest right at the beginning. Gethu neither thrills nor enthralls.
*****
The film is about Sethu (Udayanidhi), a nondescript assistant at a private library in a serene, mountain village. A content and happy youth, he leads a peaceful life with his family. His father, Thulasi (Sathyaraj), is a physical education teacher at a school nearby. The trouble begins when Thulasi files a police complaint against two sinister brothers who run a bar near the school.
Cut to a different part of the world, where a group of villains (with global appeal) are plotting to assassinate an ISRO scientist named AP Abdul Kamaal. A blue-eyed assassin (Vikranth) is sent to kill the scientist. The rest of the story is about how an assistant librarian of average build and unexceptional brains, tackles all these problems.
*****
The bar owners and their mother live in a rented bungalow. When they refuse to pay the rent, the owner of the building shows up. The brothers are so villainous that, without a second thought, they brutally strangle the hapless landlord to death. Oddly, when Thulasi files a complaint against them, they restrict themselves to threats, and locking out his family from their house. The law-abiding school teacher immediately goes to the bar and thrashes the younger brother. When the man and his gang retaliate, Sethu, the gentle and quiet librarian, transforms into another Rajinikanth. He beats men twice his size, to pulp.
*****
Amy Jackson plays a journalism graduate who can pout well, but not much else. A kleptomaniac, she regularly steals books from stores, and the library where Sethu works. Sethu goes to her house to recover the stolen books. Two meetings later, she falls in love with him. When he refuses her demand to accompany her on a jaunt around town at night, she proudly says, “If I were just an average-looking girl, I could have gone alone. But look at me, I am as white as an English woman!”
Sethu complies. Minutes later, he falls in love with her. What was that about her being a thief and a liar? Oh, well.
*****
It’s difficult to pick exactly what pulls the film down. There’s the lazily written script. Then, the terrible acting skills of the lead pair. The racist jokes, the ludicrous romantic track, and the soporific action sequences. When Amy Jackson appears on screen, flaunts her pout, and badly lip-syncs her way through some terrible acting, you want to pretend that it’s 1942. And scream ‘Quit India’.
Recommended
It’s also hard to decide whether the racist jokes are more outrageous, or Udayanidhi’s dancing skills. Meanwhile, DOP Sukumar has this strange love for top-angle shots. For no reason at all, the camera is often perched on top of a crane. And just when you decide that Harris Jayaraj’s music is the poorest aspect in Gethu, you realise that the lyricists have done an even worse job.
*****
Gethu has exactly one thing going for it: the fact that it was released during Pongal. The festival season might bring this tasteless potboiler some footfall in the theatre. Little else will.
*****
The Gethu review is a Silverscreen original article. It was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the movie. Silverscreen.in and its writers do not have any commercial relationship with movies that are reviewed on the site.