Sivappu Manjal Pachai

The protagonists of Sasi's Sivappu Manjal Pachai are chalk and cheese. Madhan (GV Prakash Kumar) is a street racer while Rajasekar (Siddharth) is a traffic cop. And they are about to become brothers in law when an alliance is fixed between Rajasekar and Rajalakshmi aka Raji (Lijomol Jose), Madhan's sister. And having grown up without their parents since their childhood, Madhan and Raji are extremely attached to one another. To complicate matters, there is history between Rajasekar and Madhan - the cop had earlier humiliated the racer. In such a scenario, can these two contrasting characters find common ground?

In Sivappu Manjal Pachai, Sasi treads on the very same ground travelled by Mani Ratnam and Vasanth with Agni Natchathiram and Nerukku Ner respectively. As in those films, the plot involves two individuals who are related to one another but cannot stand each other. But while those films treated this storyline with restraint and visual flair, Sasi adopts are more 'commercial' approach, opting for melodrama. He uses the akka-thambi and maman-machan sentiment to full effect. And he succeeds to a large extent. The sentimental scenes stop just short of being sappy while the confrontation scenes between Madhan and Rajasekar have some spark. The portions where Madhan tries to get his sister to break up with Rajasekar, and the latter's attempts to stop him from succeeding are quite entertaining. There are a couple of interesting cinematic touches that enhance the emotional moments, like the use of a couple of shirts.

But the device of an external agency - in this case, a wealthy criminal (Madhusudhanan) - bringing the battling duo together feels like lazy writing, especially when the film already has a sub-plot involving street racing that could have performed this function. Meanwhile, the racing scenes aren't shot in thrilling fashion, with the director banking mainly on rapid cuts to indicate the speed rush (the VFX, too, isn't up to the mark).

But the performances and some lines are solid to make us overlook the flaws.