Chennaiyil Oru Naal Movie Review
Director: Shaheed Kader
Cast: Sarath Kumar, Cheran, Prakash Raj, Jayaprakash, Prasanna,
Malika, Radhika, Lakshmy Menon, Parvathy
Chennaiyil Oru Naal (CON), is the Tamil remake of the critically acclaimed Malayalam super hit Traffic. It is a well made film with a nice concept on the unique idea of organ transplant.
The Chennai city police commissioner played by Sarath Kumar, has to oversee that Cheran, a police driver, delivers a heart from Chennai to Vellore, a distance of 170 kilometres in 90 minutes to save the life of a young girl who is the daughter of a superstar (Prakash Raj)!
The main events mentioned in the story happen on a single day, September 16, at a crowded traffic junction in Chennai. Two friends, Ajmal and Karthik (Sachin), travelling on a bike are fatally hit by a speeding car at a signal. Karthik was all set to interview the superstar, Gautham Krishna (Prakash Raj), for a television channel.
Also at the junction, in another car, are Dr Robin (Prasanna), a surgeon, Sathyamurthy (Cheran), the police constable, who had been suspended for accepting a bribe. The doctors failed to rescue Karthik and his heart is all set to be transplanted to Gautham Krishna’s ailing daughter in a Vellore hospital in a matter of 90 minutes.
But it is a near impossible task as the doctors and cops get ready to give it a try. The story takes some dramatic turns in between, which make the narrative even more interesting. As fate would have it, the lives of all these individuals intertwine in a curious way from then on.
CON is a multi-narrative thriller that intertwines multiple stories around one particular incident. The simultaneous happening of events has been a pattern used in quite a few international films like Babel, Amores Perros and Crash among others. Here director Shaheed Kader weaves the lives of some people and succeeds in taking you along with its pace by making you hooked into its duration of just under two hours.
The film is racy due to its twists and turns and the performances of its actors . It has top of the range acting by Cheran a depressed police driver who wants to prove himself, Sarath Kumar the police commissioner in charge of the mission impossible and Prakash Raj as an egoistic self-centered Tamil superstar.The supporting cast of Jayaprakash, Prasanna, Malika Radhika, Lakshmy Menon and Parvathy add to the strength of the plot.
Technically it is a good film with great RR by Mejo Joseph, sharp editing and camera that moves with events. CON is something different and refreshing and faithful to the original.
