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REVIEW: Like his first film, Yennamo Nadakkudhu, Rajapandi’s Achamindri is also a genre film — if the previous one was a thriller involving money laundering, this one is centred on an education racket. That said, this is also a lesser film than the other one, with the filmmaker, unfortunately, choosing to focus more on the message than on the movie itself.
The film begins with an honest education department official (Thalaivasal Vijay) dying in a bomb blast. Then, we are introduced to Sakthi (Vijay Vasanth), a pickpocket, who is attracted towards Malarvizhi (Srushti Dange), a middle-class girl. There is also Sathya (Samuthirakani), a straightforward cop, who is about to get married to his childhood sweetheart Shruti (Vidya Pradeep). Their lives turn topsy-turvy on the same day — Sakthi is chased by goons for picking the pocket of a gangster; Malar is threatened by the education minister’s PA (Jayakumar) for filing for re-evaluation on behalf of her maid’s daughter; and Sathya is attacked by his own friend and cop Saravanan (Bharat Reddy) as he starts digging into the death of Shruti.
Rajapandi nicely ties in all three strands to the central conflict of the film — the greed of private educational institutions, but where he slips up is in taking so much time to set up this story. From the clichéd romantic track to pointless songs and comedy that barely makes us smile, he keeps breaking the momentum of the narrative, so that for the first 45 minutes or so, all that we do is squirm in our seats watching uninteresting scene after scene. It is only closer to the intermission point that the film picks up pace, but you cannot help but wonder how a director, whose first film was tautly written and skilfully staged (for an action film, the stunt choreography here, by Ganeshkumar, is quite unimaginative), could get this sloppy.
Thankfully, things get engaging in the second half, and we get some strong scenes, like the confrontation between the minister (Radha Ravi, in fine form) and Rajalakshmi (Saranya Ponvannan, cast against type for once and holding her ground), an unapologetic head of an ultra-rich educational institution. The climax is built chiefly on the strength of the dialogues, and G Radhakrishnan’s lines, though they make arguments that we have heard before (like the government running liquor shops instead of schools), are both hard-hitting and crowd-pleasing that we cannot help but cheer.
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