Hari’s ‘Rathnam’ is the expected template film, with no great effort to make it anything but a template film

The film stars Vishal, Priya Bhavani Shankar. There are some interesting ideas, but none of them are allowed to take root amidst all the speed.

If a film wants to be a template film and it ends up being a template film, then is there any point in saying that this film is just a template film? That is the kind of existential dilemma a reviewer is left with after watching Hari’s new template film, Rathnam. You know that the emphasis is going to be on the action, and now Hari is doing these long, one-shot action blocks. There was one in Yaanai, too – but that was just hand combat. Here, we have a stretch that involves a car chase and some seriously complicated execution. The attempt is impressive. One of the must-haves of the template film is action, and if you are going to try for innovation, that is a welcome change. But there’s no elegance in the execution. The speeded-up effects reduce the impact of the one shot. The other factor that reduces the impact of this action block is the lack of emotion. We care about a person trying to escape his enemies if we have bought into the stakes, which is what makes us root for him. Here, it is like watching a video game. It’s fun for a while, and nothing more.

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https://www.galatta.com/tamil/movie/review/rathnam/

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