Gangers Review - Engaging Final Hour Saves This Partially Entertaining Flick!

Ashwin Ram

Gangers is a heist action comedy starring Sundar.C, Vadivelu and Catherine Tresa in the lead roles. The film is directed by Sundar.C and produced by Kushboo.

Premise:

A lot of criminal activities happen in and around a Government school. Sundar.C is the newly joined sports teacher, but he is rumoured to be the secretly appointed investigation officer. The progression of the case forms the rest of the movie.

Writing/ Direction:

The expectation has been set for a fun ride with the Vadivelu-Sundar.C combo. On the flip side, many heavy topics are touched, although nothing in-depth. A good amount of screen time goes to the crime aspect like murder, drugs and voyeurism too, these factors set a dull tone as we generally don’t anticipate such stuff in a Sundar.C flick. The first half has very minimal scope for comedy, not that the jokes fell flat, the treatment itself is serious and a couple of humour elements fail to click as they are forcefully placed in between an action-oriented screenplay. Surprisingly, the overall writing is fairly decent, the idea of the first hour is interesting to hear as one liner, unfortunately the execution is so poor that the movie is unbearable till the interval. Similarly, the flashback in the later half seem to be convincing on paper but has no emotional effect on screen. Thankfully after the tiresome setting, Sundar.C uses his trump card which is comedy well in the last hour. Two scenes that build the base for the finale is sure to cheer the audience and gives us the vintage Vadivelu vibes. The lengthy climax stretch that taking place inside a theatre involving many artists is a fun watch. The links between MadhaGajaRaja, the movie that was being played on the theatre screen and the dramady at the spot is well connected. The quirky directorial touch at the very end is sure to send-off the viewers with a smile.

Performances:

Sundar.C the actor has given what was exactly required from him by Sundar.C the writer, however the heroism angle could have been brought on-screen with more coherent concept shifts. Vadivelu entertains by scoring well in the final hour, until then he was on out-of-focus. His makeup was the biggest concern for the longest time in the movie, thankfully the getup changes towards the end worked in the favour of the film. Catherine Tresa was just physically existent and was not really doing much in the story.

Technicalities:

 Underwhelming music as both songs and background score barely add any value to the flow. Not much in terms of quality, yet the cameraman was achieved what Sundar.C wanted to do with the film, packing all the shots rapidly without much breathing space. Editor had all the potential to cut short the film at least by half an hour to hide the gazillion flaws in the first half, the repetitive establishments of the same substance doesn’t work too.

Bottomline

Haywire till the halfway mark as the focus was predominantly on action. Inducing comedies in between the serious crimes is the major spoilsport. Fortunately towards the end, Sundar.C grips his comedy forte through Vadivelu and some fun situations.

Rating - 2.5/ 5