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Debutante Jeeva Shankar directed 'Naan' is one of the finely crafted psychological thrillers in recent times featuring music director Vijay Antony in a lead role for the first time. The story of the movie chronicles the life of an individual - Karthik, who is forced to be a child convict due to circumstances, spends time in child welfare prison and gets released as a grown up man. Once he is out, he switches identities by taking advantage of an opportunity that comes his way in order to shield his true identity and starts eliminating people who comes to know the truth.
The pretext of the story made room for a good thriller. One should say that the director had a well-woven script with some subtle connections between characters that created some interesting ripples along the way. The narrative also had an engrossing appeal which is an essential ingredient for a thriller. There were neither mind boggling dialogs nor some over-the-top performances, but every character did their bit in a measured way in order to elevate the movie to its desired level at the right time.
Vijay Antony in his debut has offered more than a decent performance. Though this role only demanded some subtle emotions, he is an actor whom we should keep a tab on in his future ventures too in order to determine his worth. Though he had similar expressions for varied emotions, he managed to pass muster as the script took care of the rest.
Siddharth as a rich and spoilt brat was apt for the role. His last outing in 'Aanandha Thaandavam' might not have ticked as he would have wished, but this time, the role was spot on and the brief time that he spent on screen was well conceived and augured with the story.
Roopa Manjari as Siddharth's love interest brought in the much needed vibrancy to the proceedings and she has matured and delivered a performance expressing finely tuned nuances of happiness, sorrow, jealousy and anger.
Anuya in an extended cameo had very little to offer but has done a tidy job at it without making much impact and was used by the director to bring in the twists and turns in the script.
Others in the cast were adequate to take the script to the finishing line.
Technically the film was chic which in turn added to the urban flavor of the script. The camera which was also wielded by the director himself was vibrant, while the editing department has managed to keep the film to its desired length, though one would have wished that the second half was a tad shorter.
Music by Vijay Antony was below average. Being his 25th film, he could have concentrated more, but no offence, as he has debuted as an actor and that has made this occasion special.
On the downside, apart from the blatant switching of the characters which was a bit unbelievable at times mainly due to some far fetched coincidences, I was not able to sense anything other than that.
Overall, it was a well scripted thriller and is one of the few movies in recent times which is driven by script rather by the characters.
Verdict: Good
Rating: 3.5/5
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