The much awaited Lokesh Kanagaraj's "Leo" has finally hit the screens after the pre-release hype and expectations had touched stratospheric levels. It has already broke quite a few opening day records and looks poised to be in pole position to claim a few more enviable records. There is obviously a lot of hype when Thalapathy's movies are up for release but this time around with Lokesh & his LCU being part of the discussion, it was quite unprecedented. So the question is whether it has managed to deliver what the audience expected???
The movie unfolds in Himachal Pradesh where Parthiban (Vijay), & his wife, Satya (Trisha) is happily married and settled with their kids. Apart from being a cafe owner, he was also an animal rescuer & his expertise came to the fore as he was called in to tame a spotted hyena that had wrecked havoc in his locality. A few days after that incident, he became the talk of the town when a botched robbery attempt in his cafe ended with the gang being murdered by him. However, the court left him free of charges as he had committed the crime in self defense. But it was just the start of his troubles.
Based on David Cronenberg's "A History of Violence", Lokesh along with Rathna Kumar & Deeraj Vaidy has definitely adapted it well to cater to the sensibilities of a Tamil action thriller. Unlike the usual Vijay flicks, which has a standard template of celebrating his stardom and making the fans swoon for it; this one has a subtle take which is more in sync with Lokesh's style. During the promotions, Lokesh was harping about not missing the first ten minutes & I would have to admit that the VFX work that as gone into the hyena was impressive (though the VFX in the car chase in the second half lacked finesse). The mood is set right in the beginning & it continues to build on it in the first half, though unlike the other LCU flicks there is more emphasis on family and emotions. With the introduction of the antagonists, the anticipation is significantly built with the belief that Lokesh will build an enthralling character arc for those characters & take the movie to the next level.
Unfortunately, it wasn't to be as the movie fizzles out in the latter half with the core theme for the conflict being rather tame & hardly any homework being done to cash in on the screen presence of Sanjay Dutt and Arjun. It literally felt like the movie was directed by someone else from this point or Lokesh was forced into thinking that he needed to keep Thalapathy fans happy and hence resorted to the usual mass masala observed in the former's movies. Even the LCU angle felt added for the sake of it rather than being blended into it. In all likelihood, I doubt whether we will see Leo in an extended role in the rest of the LCU. At the same time on the technical side, it is made pretty well be it Manoj Paramahamsa's delightful visuals and colour tone, Philomin Raj's editing, Anbariv's action choreography in the first half & Anirudh's music which unlike his recent blockbusters is much more subtler but still gels well with the mood and sequences.
It would be fair to say that I was pretty impressed with the performances as most of them have done complete justice to their roles irrespective of how their characters were written. First & foremost, it has to be Vijay who pulled off Parthibhan's character really well as he effectively conveyed the angst and anger. However, as Leo; it felt like a repeat of his usual style but still that was what the role demanded and he did it fine. Both Trisha & Gautam Menon did their roles neatly along with Mathew Thomas. Arjun had an stylish aura to him while Sanjay Dutt oscillated between being an imposing character to rather mediocre. As for the rest, Sandy Master was impressive, Madonna was a miscast as Sai Palavi would have been a better choice while Babu Antony was wasted.
Verdict: From an engaging first half which started off promisingly to being below average by the time it ended. Undoubtedly, the weakest in the LCU & Vijay's best performance in recent times. In short, it is still very much worth a watch!!!
Rating: 2.5/5
Regards...Ben
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