Saguni review: "Script lacks the guile of the name!!!"

Tamil film industry has been making waves courtesy of small budget films since the past few months. With a new ruling on the offing that big banner films should be released only on festival months, the competition is slowly heating up for vacant slots. The first one to grab the slot is Karthi who is finally back on screen after a hiatus of more than a year, with his latest film "Saguni", whose promos has already been the talk of the town. So can Karthi rack in the moolah especially with "Billa 2" & "Vishwaroopam" releasing within a fortnight???

Bhupathi (Prakash Raj) is the CM of Tamil Nadu who has made his way up the ladder of power by eliminating whoever stood in his path to personal glory. Kamal (Karthi) is the native of Karaikudi who had come to Chennai with the hope of saving his paternal property which was under threat of being usurped & demolished by the railway authority. But his pleas fell on the deaf ears of Bhupathi & that entices him to play the role of a king maker to attain his aim. So will Kamal succeed or will the seasoned politician in Bhupathi prevail yet again???

Shankar Dayal who has called the shots for the first time in his career has also penned the script. Though packaged as a political thriller with a comical under current, the script doesn't have the substance which blows us away. The opening sequences does evoke hopes of a thriller but it very soon fizzles out as almost the whole first half just goes about beating around the bush. The second half gets into the groove of things but it doesnt quite excite the audience. If at all anything works, it is the comedy between Karthi & Santhanam which had the audience in splits. G.V Prakash's music was average with Manasellam Mazhaye rendered by Sonu Nigam & Saindhavi being the pick of the lot. 

In the performance department, Karthi has done justice to his role with Santhanam providing him with adequate support. Pranitha Subhash hardly had anything to do except shake a leg or two with Karthi. Prakash Raj sleep walked through his role as he knows it like the back of his hand  Radhika & Kota Srinivas Rao were fine while Nasser was grossly wasted.

Verdict: There is no doubt that the film will have a fantastic opening, but I seriously doubt whether it will be able to sustain it for more than a week due to the lack of an interesting script & the release of other biggies. In short, except for the comedy the film hardly offers anything!!!

Rating: 1.5/5

Regards...Ben