07 March,2011 02:21 PM IST | | IANS
Film: Singam Puli; Director: Sai Ramani; Cast: Jiiva, Divya Spandana, Soundarya, Ponvannan, Pandu, Santhanam; Music: Mani Sharma; Rating: ''
There was a buzz around this movie, since people wanted to know how Jiiva would do in a dual role. Plus, being a debut film of director Sai Ramani, the question was whether he would be able to pull it off in the first attempt.
While Jiiva has proved his skill in handling the dual role, the debutant director has failed to come up with a convincing and interesting script to make optimum use of Jiiva's talents.
The story revolves around Siva (Jiiva), a 12th standard dropout who takes to selling fish as a profession. His love interest is Swetha (Divya). He has a twin brother Ashok (Jiiva), a lawyer. The two live with their sister and parents.
Ashok is a chronic flirt and leaves no stone unturned to have affairs with women. But he covers his tracks well by pretending to be a good guy and manages to get away with his charm that fools people easily, including his own parents.
He has a friend Buji Babu (Santhanam), who aids him in his affairs with girls. But when he goes one step too far and a girl Gayathri (Soundarya) dies because of his cheating ways, things get out of hand.
At the home front, no one understands the emotional outbursts of Siva and all of them believe that he is a bad guy. Siva is terribly upset with Ashok's fraudulent ways and wants to put him behind the bars.
Ashok, on the other hand, is determined to counter his brother. He uses his charm and sophistication. Siva gets defeated at every step but his straight forward approach starts getting good results.
Ashok now sheds his pseudo soft postures and decides to use his links with goons to get rid of his brother.
Debutant Sai has chosen a dead old theme of fight between twins who represent good and bad. This could have been forgiven if he had worked up a good script to tell this tug-of-war between the brothers.
Apart from telling the story on expected and cliched lines the director makes it a tiring experience with the length (nearly three hours) that offers neither novelty nor interest.
A few second-half twists in the script fall flat.
Jiiva's acting is the highlight of the film. He keeps you in splits in the comic scenes with Santhanam, but with too many double-meaning dialogues.
The heroines are more of eye candy with the mandatory songs. Divya Spandana has a beautiful face but her weight makes her less appealing. Soundarya in a brief role impresses.
The songs are just irritants. Mani Sharma's music has nothing to write home about though two melody numbers with the two heroines are hummable. The song featuring Soundarya is spicy.
The film has some fun and a few entertainment elements, but the script is too mundane to relish.
