Lal Salaam

"Aishwarya Dhanush's "Lal Salaam" starts off with Rajni's usual intro card, but with the disclaimer that it's a 'special appearance'. Well, this has got to be the longest 'special appearance' in any movie ever, as his scenes are at least a good half of the movie. And thankfully, having Rajni in this movie is what might realistically convince someone to go watch it in cinemas. Because if not for Rajni, this movie quite honestly has very little else to offer.

"Lal Salaam" tries its hand at tackling some pretty heavy subjects like race, religion, caste, politics, greed, and hatred, but ends up offering nothing we haven't already known. And that could have been forgiven if it was at least interesting, but the heavy tone of the movie prevents it from being entertaining in any capacity. This movie's biggest fault lies with its messy surface-level screenplay and its poor unfocused direction. There's way too much going on in the movie that's utterly unnecessary and eventually leads nowhere. It's sometimes a little too all over the place for us to follow along, leading up to what was intended to be an uplifting climax to be rather glitzy and passable.

On the positive side, however, both Vishnu Vishal and Vikranth have done a decent job with the material given, and so did the entire supporting unit... namely actor Senthil whose performance stands out with a lot of honesty. And of course, there's Rajni, but then again we watch Rajni for Rajni and that's about it. But for all my complaining, the movie is still passable. It's not in any way a bad movie, but it's certainly miles away from being a good one. Would I recommend watching it in cinemas? Not really, but if you are going to go, do have your expectations in check.