'Saroja' - Prabhu comes up with another winner (Tamil film review)

Film: 'Saroja'; Cast: S.P. Charan, Jayaram, Prakash Raj, Vaibhav, Premji, Shiva, Veda; Direction: Venkat Prabhu; Cinematography: Shakthi Saravanan; Music: Yuvan Shankar Raja.

With his racy presentation of 'Saroja', director Venkat Prabhu has proved that his debut 'Chennai 600028' was no flash in the pan.

The technical quality, thanks to scintillating cinematography by Shakthi Saravanan, delightful score by Yuvan Shankar Raja and backed by good performances by all members of the cast provide an apt foil to a good script that makes watching 'Saroja' a pleasure.

The movie is all about the adventures of four friends Jagapathi Babu (S.P. Charan), Ram Babu (Vaibhav), Ganesh (Premji) and Ajay Raj (Shiva), who are stuck in a forest enroute to a one-day-international cricket match in Hyderabad.

They become an unwitting part of a drama over the kidnapping of a woman Saroja (Veda) by a gangster (played excellently by Sampath). Ravichandran, an assistant commissioner of police (Jayaram), and the worried father of Saroja, played by Prakash Raj, help to take the edge-of-the-seat suspenseful rescue of the girl to a pulsating climax.

Prabhu has provided enough entertainment to cat-calling frontbenchers through the item numbers performed by a moll (Nikita). Virtually 75 percent of the movie is shot in the night on high speed film and the result is a treat.

Yuvan Shankar Raja seems to be improving with each film, well on the footsteps of his accomplished father Ilaya Raja.

The sepia night frames of Shakthi Saravanan are indeed brilliant, setting the mood for the gloomy atmosphere and increasing the nail biting wait for the denouement.