Chennai: Unarvu, directed by Subbu stars Sumanth, Venkat, Ankita Navya and Shinav in the lead roles. Produced by Shekar Jayaram, it has music by Nakul Abhyankar and David Jan croons the camera.
The film starts with Ramadorai (Venkat) a social worker who wants to transform Chennai into a beggar-less city. So, with his NGO, Light House Company, he along with his assistant, Sathish (Shinav) goes around the city, looking for beggars and gives them employment and transforms their life completely.
Meanwhile, Sumanth dons the role of a Chief Minister and surprisingly he is not in a negative role and turns out to be a good samaritan. Arul D Shankar who plays the role of a corrupted CM is the antagonist in the film. He turns out to be a common enemy between the CM and Ramadurai and how he is defeated forms the rest of the story.
Director Subbu deserves a credit especially for the first half of the film because it fully deals with the life of beggars. Their day-to-day struggle is captured neatly and it also tells us how they become beggars, not by their choice but by circumstances. One major strength of the film is that it has a lot of new faces and while seeing them on screen it looks so natural. The first half keeps us engaged fully and without any songs, there is no lapse in concentration and with a good screenplay, it exceeds the expectations.
Most of the scenes in the movie is shot around Marina Beach, and cinematographer David Jan’s camera work deserves applause. Nakul Abhyankar’s music also provides a big fillip to the film. However, after that well-made first half, the second half is a big letdown as the director falters in execution.
The story suddenly takes a turn as the real intention behind Ramadurai’s social work is revealed. It is also at this juncture that the story’s focus shifts to Sathish, his assistant and how he turns out to be the one who influences Ramadurai. Both he and Ramadorai start playing with the emotion of the gratefulness shown by their beggar-turned employee, who trusts them completely and uses him to achieve their goal.
With two unwanted songs and lengthy dialogues, the story goes on and on making one feel tired at some point in time. Also, the dialogues did not match with the lip-sync of the actors. Had the director focused more on the second half, Unarvu would have been a must-watch.