I’m not someone who judges a book by its cover. Absolutely not. After all, a lot of hard work goes into a book, or a movie. It’s worth giving it a good look in. But, there are still some movies you can’t help judging 10 minutes into the story. Still, you second guess yourself. Try to give it another 30 minutes. Well, when it comes to Adhibar, trust that 10 minutes. Really. Judge that book by its cover.
*****
Shiva (Jeeva) is an NRI living in Canada with his mother. He gets into a fight. His mother tells him not to start fights in a foreign land. Being an obedient son, he returns to his homeland to start a real-estate company. Back in his own country, he blindly trusts everyone who crosses his path. Soon enough, this lands him in trouble. Then he’s caught in a controversy and gets arrested by the CBI. The story of how he emerges from this problem unfolds as the film progresses.
*****
Adhibar tests your patience right from the beginning. Unwanted songs bizarrely crop up in unexpected situations. Like one minute we have Shiva struggling to get his business going. There are all sorts of problems to deal with. Next minute we’re looking at the interior of a bar, listening to a song about everyone lying to him, and watching some extremely awkward dance moves by Jeevan, Samuthirakani and Thambi Ramaiah. Combine the half-baked screenplay and the wafer-thin storyline, and little about anything portrayed on screen makes sense.
Rowdies change their path and turn into ‘good guys’. In the span of a second. And then, there’s a villain (Richard) who is a leading lawyer, but never gets caught for the wrongdoings he’s been doing. There are fake beards and fake wigs. In fact, if there’s a comprehensive list of all the things that you can get wrong on screen, Adhibar would tick every box.
*****
The continuity between the scenes was so eminently absent that even the school kid sitting in front of me pointed it out. For example, Shiva gets arrested by the CBI. Cut. His wife persuades a leading CBI officer to take up the case. Cut. Shiva is granted bail. Cut. Shiva addresses the media to tell them he’s starting a new business. What? No one knows when he got released. Or anything else in between. Even a clichéd montage song would have restored some semblance of progression.
*****
Director Surya Prakash had said that Adhibar is based on a true story. That’s another cliché this movie nails. The one about real life being far more interesting than fiction.
Recommended
In all fairness, Samuthirakani, Kovai Sarala and Thambi Ramaiah do manage to crack a few jokes. The supporting actors – the villain (Richard), the switch-hit good guy (Nandha), and Shiva’s friend – react well in challenging situations. But, our hero. He sets a new world record for maintaining a single expression through an entire film. Be it a funny situation or a sad situation, he has the same stern expression for it. Maybe he forgot he was the hero, and not the menacing villain in his other film Khaaka Khaaka? But this film isn’t devoid of tragedy. And herein it lies –all the good actors die. Our poker-faced hero remains strong and alive.
*****
PS (this has to be a PS because it’s a PS in the movie): There is a heroine in the movie. She exists. In total, she is on screen for almost 20 minutes. She isn’t just naïve, she is supremely innocent. She cries. Other than that, she has a blank expression because her husband is in CBI custody.
*****
The Adhibar 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 an advertising relationship with movies that are reviewed on the site.