Movie Review: ET

Suriya is known for picking up out-of-the-box stories and experimenting with films. Once in a while, he will do mass and commercial films. He teamed up with Pandiraj for one such film ET (Evariki Thalavanchadu). After Aakasam Nee Haddura and Jai Bhim released on OTT, Suriya is back in cinemas with ET. Let’s check out whether this film fulfills its purpose or not.

What is it about?

Krishna Mohan (Suriya), an advocate by profession, loses his sister in his childhood. Since then he comes to the rescue of girls who seek his brotherly help. Kamesh (Vinay Rai), son of a central minister, runs a sexual-assault racket where he traps girls and films their nude videos to blackmail them. Kamesh goes to the extent of filming Krishna Mohan’s wife Adheera (Priyanka Arul Mohan) and threatens him as well. But Krishna Mohan fails to prove Kamesh and his gang as culprits in the courtroom. How he takes law into his hands and does justice to girls forms the crux of the story.

Performances

Suriya is a natural actor who moulds himself into any role he opts for. He gets under the skin of Krishna Mohan with ease. He pulled off  the film on his shoulders. He does justice to family scenes and action scenes. Priyanka Arul Mohan does a neat job despite having limited screen presence. Her character starts on a regular note but gets attention in the latter half. Satyaraj and Saranya are just alright. Villain Vinay Rai is ineffective despite getting a powerful role. The comedy also doesn’t work.

Technicalities

Director Pandiraj has chosen a story as old as hills and rocks. Protagonist saving girls against the goons and taking revenge is done to death. The director gave it a spin of ‘technology’ by including the concept of ‘nude’ videos to give it a prevailing touch. Yet it has a good social message. But drama doesn’t work. Imman’s music fails to engage. Visuals are good but the boring script makes it dis-interesting.

Highlights

Suriya’s Performance
Emotion In Parts

Drawbacks

Too Much Tamil Flavour
Boring First Half
Predictable Story

Analysis

Conflict is crucial for any story to establish. Director Pandiraj conveniently ignores this in the ET right from the word go. He has wasted a chunk of the screentime with unwanted scenes. The entire first half is dominated by family drama and romance that is tasteless. It just acts as filler. This disappoints the viewers and takes away the interest. The conflict is only revealed in the pre-interval portion that draws some curiosity. The crime element is unraveled and that sets the tone for the second-half. ET is based on infamous Pollachi sexual assault case. So, this story may be connecting to Tamil audiences. The Tamil flavour is too much to digest. The nativity factor is clearly missing in Telugu which puts us off.

But Suriya is the only blessing in disguise. He manages to sit through with his flawless performance. He excels in the action scenes. The emotion works in parts. The best scene in the film is where Adheera bravely comes forward to expose the criminals. It is conveyed that women in sexual assault shouldn’t be ashamed and rather they should fight back with courage. It is strongly conveyed with a crucial scene involving Adheera and her whole family standing by her. This is laudable. But later proceedings prove that the film is a routine formulaic potboiler. The scene shifts to court where they fail to prove the culprits. Instead, the protagonist Krishna Mohan (Suriya) and his father Sathyaraj get arrested. How, the protagonist takes up the law into his hands and teaches a strong lesson to the goons is the rest of the film. Here, it becomes predictable. These proceedings turn boring again.

There are only a handful of plus points that fail to overcome the shortcomings the film has. After watching ET, one wonders what made Suriya sign up for this film. It has nothing much to offer. The social message in the latter portions is decent. But that alone isn’t the pulling factor. On the whole, ET is a formulaic film that fails to engage. Even Suriya can’t save this film. Pandiraj should seriously introspect and change his track.

Bottom-line:  Disappointing ET

Rating: 2/5