Echcharikkai Review: Could have been made more gripping!

Sarjun had got an interesting script on hand. He is not very new to movie making. He has directed two short films Maa and Lakshmi, which he boasts in Echcharikkai title credits!

He has handled some critical subjects with much ease and interest. Echcharikkai is one such subject as well.

The movie has an interesting star cast. Varalaxmi SarathKumar, Sathyaraj, Kishore and Vivek Rajagopal have perfectly fit themselves into their roles in the movie.

Yogi Babu, though, doesn’t fit in really well. It seems he has been pulled into the movie just to help with marketing may be?

The movie spends some time establishing the background story of the antagonists. That feels quite interesting as it is unconventional!

That background story helps us to connect better with those characters.

What the story lacks is the grip – perhaps there is quite some distraction and the movie on screen spreads itself thin between those elements.

The director could have stayed focused rather than enforcing unwanted elements like a song, and some scattered sub-plots.

Nevertheless the movie delivers the necessary cat and mouse thrill.

We have David (Kishore) and Thomas (Vivek Rajagopal) and their sister who gets killed by her husband who is an alcoholic – the reason is that she didn’t give him money for booze.

On hearing this, David rushes and kills his father with the same knife. David asks Thomas to accept the crime so the sentence will be much lower as he is a junior.

He does and after a while we have two guys who are in a thirst for money.

They kidnap the daughter of a builder Shwetha (Varalaxmi SarathKumar) to get a good amount of money.

We have retired DIG Natraj (Sathyaraj) who steps in to help in this case as requested by the builder. Natraj’s daughter has a physical condition that requires all time attention.

So Natraj is home bound but still he comes forward to help by setting up the office at home.

How he cleverly unfolds the mystery behind the kidnapping forms the rest of the story.

Varalaxmi is smart about choosing her roles recently. She has given a neat performance that her role demands.

Sathyaraj comes as a clever investigator and his characterization is pretty interesting too.

Kishore shines in the role of a frustrated guy who is after money. Vivek Rajagopal performs really well!

What lacks is the gripping screenplay and the pace. I don’t understand why stereotypes have to be entertained in movies that claim to be different.

There is absolutely no need for a romantic song and comedy in the movie, but still the director had decided to infuse them into the movie for the sake of it.

Things like these dilute the otherwise concrete thriller and water down the natural essence of the movie.

Nevertheless it is still a good thriller to watch – just don’t expect an edge of the seat thriller as you would have expected from the trailers.