‘Euphoria’ is the word of least magnitude that I can think of when it comes to the hype that had surrounded this flick. It is so obvious that on a Diwali day everyone wants to have a glimpse of their favourite star performing to their tunes on screen... but was it good enough to get the gallery sizzling?

7 aum Arivu unfolded flamboyantly briefing the life and times of Bodhidharman, who is considered to be the father of martial arts among the east Asian stock of Shaolin Monks. The rest of the movie dealt with the fascination of bringing him back to this modern world, to face the current challenges, with state of the art graphics and mindless action sequences.

A.R. Murugadoss has definitely taken the road less travelled and the plot seems to be fresh and out of the box. The focus and theme of the movie which deals with the unsung elegance of the Tamils is laudable; but I am afraid I cannot go on heaping praises only for this aspect as the movie had some unforgivable blunders during its course:

1. Screenplay – played spoilsport in a script which could have been a sure shot winner.

2. Songs looked pretty ordinary on screen with some run of the mill picturization.

3. Shruti Haasan – Fair skin and her last name is the only similarity that could be associated with her father.

4. Dialogues – though some powerful dialogues brushed the screen every now and then, the overall effort in penning the dialogs seemed to look dumb

5. Action sequences – absolutely mindless – the concept of ‘hypnotism’ was judiciously used such that during the midway one gets the feeling of watching a ‘zombie’ movie.

Coming to the Performances:

For Suriya it’s yet another rocking performance, though not really special in any way. Has managed to carry the role of Bodhidharman with grace and also convincingly performs that of the circus artist. Good show!

Johnny Tri Nguyen, sported a role that demanded extreme physical fitness and a suave personality to showcase his antiques – a sensational debut as a powerful antagonist.

Shruti Haasan – nothing much to talk about her acting skills, but I felt that she managed to get away with the role of a nerdy genetic scientist, which demanded bare minimal effort. But this girl was just not able to emote!

The rest of the cast had very little to offer and did not make any impression.

Harris Jeyaraj seems to have lost his form. ‘Mun Andhi’ is the only number which is hummable. The rest of the songs do not gel with the proceedings.

Cinematography by Ravi.K.Chandran was top class, especially the first 15 minutes was engaging.

Editing by Anthony was crisp in the first half but faltered during the latter. One could feel the pain and predictability in the proceedings as the movie neared the climax. As far as the predictability goes, Murugadoss should also share the responsibility for disengaging the audiences from the movie towards the climax.

No doubt there has been a lot of effort involved in collecting critical facts about the culture and times, but had the same effort gone into packing this movie with a punch with a much better screen play which was believable, laced with some savvy dialogues, it would have definitely elevated the movie watching experience.

Having heaped so many complaints, if I say that the movie is not even worth a watch, it would be harsh on my part, considering the budget and the effort involved, but can’t help it!

Verdict: Below Average

Rating: 2/5