Seeru HD Released

Seeru begins the way most mass hero movies begin. Someone is in trouble (here, it is two young women who have been waylaid by thugs), and just when things seem bleak, the hero arrives in style and saves the day. This is Manimaran (a sprightly Jiiva who is in fine form), a do-gooder. He runs a cable TV channel in Mayiladuthurai that functions as the town’s conscience keeper. There are two things dear to Manimaran. He is the sort of guy would lay down his life for you if you are either his sister or his friend.

In fact, when Malli (a beefed-up Varun, whose dubbed voice (by Gautham) fits him perfectly), a gangster who has been hired to finish him off, offhandedly refers to him as a friend, Manimaran decides he’d be one. “Unkitta solla koodatha vaarthaya sollitaane,” another friend remarks, in jest. But it is only later that we realise how true the statement is, when Manimaran decides to go to Chennai, and fight Malli’s battle.

Even though it starts off as a mass hero movie, Seeru turns out to be a solid masala movie that nicely balances sentiment and action. If Rathina Shiva’s Rekka had a whiff of Ghilli, Seeru, recalls Run, which was also about a youngster from a small town locking horns with gangsters in the city, in its set-up. The director keeps the narration engaging with hardly any lull and packages the script with smarts, tying in scenes with seemingly inconsequential ones that we were shown earlier. Like how the opening scene, which initially seems like just another hero introduction scene, has a payoff in the climax.

And we get a punchy flashback, with female characters that have agency. Unlike the female lead, Vasuki (Riya Suman, who struggles in a one-note role), who is used mainly for the mandatory romantic track. These portions involve school girls who want to avenge their dead friend — another great touch to underscore how friendship drives the film’s narrative. Even the message-y bits in this portion doesn’t seem like lecture.

But you also wish Rathina Shiva had written the antagonist better. Navdeep plays this character, a criminal lawyer, who is protecting some really powerful evil people and will stop at nothing to ensure that his clients stay protected, but other than making his henchmen run around chasing Manimaran and Malli, the moves that he makes to nab the duo are rather meh.