Oh, not again, you almost grimace as you sit through another gangster movie.
In this season of never-ending assembly line of gangster films, Don Sera is another overkill, in more ways than one.
The film is an extension of Pattiyal and Pudhupettai, without possessing any gritty realism of the other two. Salim, the scriptwriter who had worked with R G Verma (the dada of don movies), lets it go all haywire. The director, who has borrowed liberally from Vaastav, also doesn't know to handle the story. In the event, what you have is a plodding pastiche of (dimensionless) postcard images from the world of goons and venal politicians.
Chera (Ranjit), a guileless vagrant. He lives life contently with his father, mother and a brother in a dirty slum. Chera opens a small mobile eatery, and runs into a gangster. While trying to save his buddy from the clutches of the vile man, Chera kills him. Later it is known that the slain man was none other than the younger brother of a local don. Quickly, Chera is initiated into the big bad world of thugs and ruffians who live life on its edge. Chera becomes a dada in his own right and is given shadow by a strong Minister (Ilavarasu).
Chera, who kills at the drop of a hat, also falls in love with a local commercial sex worker (Susi Bala) and is on a high of alcohol and cocaine. The climax is about whether Chera and his acolytes are bumped off by the two-timing Minister or is it the don who has the last laugh.
From start to finish, this gangster movie has ripped off some scene from every other gangster movie. So there is little novelty ore novelty. The director's other major failing, it would seem, is in not wresting compelling performances from his cast. Leading with Ranjith, everyone hams outrageously and the film is left adrift for lack of feel.
The production values are also nothing to rave about.
There is no heart and feel in the treatment. It is simply an attempt to cook up a movie in a genre that is popular now.
Sadly, it doesn't work.
