Sorgavaasal Movie Review: Prison films are tough to crack, but the allure of this genre is understandable. It is essentially a chamber drama where every character is unpredictable, and the audience is tuned to expect them to get violent at any time. These characters are ticking time bombs, and the setting allows the writers to explore the human psyche and deliver a solid character-driven drama. With this base in place, one can add the required flavours like romance, sentiment, revenge, and even comedy, and a prison film will have the space for it all. What really matters is the proportion of each, and for the longest time in Sorgavaasal, debutant director Sidharth Vishwanath, along with his co-writers Tamizh Prabha and Ashwin Ravichandran, get it right. However, despite perfectly building a Virumaandi meets Vada Chennai narrative to a crescendo, they falter at the end. But the characters, and its effective portrayal, ensure Sorgavaasal escapes without crashing and burning.
Sorgavaasal opens with jailer Kattabomman (Karunaas) saying this was a job he didn’t want to do. It is a job that neither helps him gain respect nor make money with bribes. Then, he lets us know that given a choice between being a servant in heaven and a king in hell, many of us would choose the latter. And who is he telling all of this to? It is investigating officer Ismail (Natty), who is trying to understand the machinations of a bloody prison riot that ended with 45 deaths, and 60 reported missing cases. Through this investigation, we are introduced to the various guards of this not-so-pearly gates of ‘heaven’.
RJ Balaji in a Still from Sorgavaasal.
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We have the dreaded gangster Sigamani (a terrific Selvaraghavan), who wants to denounce his ways and walk the path of god, thanks to the words of fellow inmate Kendrick (an effective Samuel Robinson). He has his trusted aides, the hot-headed Tiger Mani (Hakkim) and the calm and non-violent Seelan (Anthonydasan Jesuthasan). It is into this well-organised world inside the prison that a pushcart restaurant owner Parthiban (RJ Balaji in his career-best performance) is thrown in for a crime he didn’t commit.
Sorgavaasal is essentially an insight into the prison system of India, which is burdened by the other systems in place. Ask prison wardens why the jails are overflowing? They’ll point at the justice system. Ask the justice system why prisons aren’t establishments where people change, they’ll point at the conditions in the prison. Ask the government why there aren’t enough funds allocated for the same? They’ll point at both, and the vicious cycle continues. However, it is different on celluloid, right? One can dangle the glimmer of hope. And it is this hope that fuels the life of Parthiban inside the grey walls that close in on him with every passing day. As Cooker Basheer (an excellent Balaji Sakthivel) tells him, “Don’t cook tasty food everyday… you are not supposed to feel at home in a jail.” This sentiment hits us at the core, however, such moments come sparingly in a film that is instead focused on wringing out a dark and gory thriller from a wafer-thin premise.
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Yes, the characters are engaging, but only a handful get enough emotional heft. Probably why, when all hell breaks loose in the last act featuring the prison riot, we are at an arm’s length from the characters. But till then, Sidharth runs a tight ship, and points to RJ Balaji for not wanting to be at the centre of the narrative at all points. Make no mistake, the film is still about Parthiban, but the movie is also about the other inmates of the prison, and how each of them are just putting on a facade to mask the pain of just surviving a life, and never living it.
Sidharth and Co do a good job of establishing the core of Parthiban using just limited scenes. Take, for instance, the beautiful arc for Parthiban featuring his mother (Porkodi) and fiance (Saniya Iyappan). It gives us pointers about Parthiban’s psyche, and why the police might have been quick to brand him a murderer. However, it never overstays its welcome. There is also a scene in the prison involving Parthiban and his prison friend Rangu (Maurish). Just when a saviour complex creeps in, it is beautifully shut down. Such flourishes are the highlights of Sorgavaasal, which works wonderfully as a character study of people thrown into a life in prison.
A still from Sorgavaasal featuring Saniya Iyappan, RJ Balaji and Maurish.
Interestingly, Sorgavaasal doesn’t go the Criminal Justice way to gradually tell us about the struggles of being in prison. It briefly touches upon the free-flow of drugs, sexual violence, and cliques in a prison before getting into the core plot of a strict Superintendent (Sharaf U Dheen) trying to bring in order and enforce his superiority among ‘criminals’ lodged inside the prison. His complete disdain for the ‘lowly criminals’ and his manipulative methods to make people do his bidding forms the second act of the film, which augurs well for Sorgavaasal. Even when newer players are brought into the mix, the film never feels bloated because there is something interesting always underway. Since the movie is more Virumaandi than Vada Chennai, we aren’t really bothered by the ‘hows’ or ‘whys’ of the events. We are just witness to a series of events unfolding, and points to the makers for ensuring these are gripping.
There aren’t many standout dialogues, and it is mainly because they aren’t designed to be. There is a beautiful conversation about god between Siga and Kendrick where there is a sense of showboating and a lack of subtlety. But it still works because the characters are memorable, and wonderfully portrayed. It all comes together with the brilliant background score of Christo Xavier, who not only delivers on the adrenaline-pumping score when things go haywire, but gives the film much-needed calmness and silence through his work in the not-so-flamboyant portions. Cinematographer Prince Anderson does an excellent job of showing S Jayachandran’s prison set in all its greyness, and devoid of a semblance of hope. The elaborate action sequences in the final act give us a strong feeling of witnessing violence on a grand scale. However, it doesn’t always come across, and the true expanse of the prison isn’t really felt.
Selvaraghavan with director Sidharth Vishwanath.
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As the credits rolled in Sorgavaasal, and Christo’s ominous score takes centrestage, I couldn’t help but be impressed with how the film doesn’t really take sides. It would have been easy to make the police the antagonists to the prisoners considering Balaji plays one. Since the film isn’t just about Balaji’s character, the decision to step back and just show us the machinations of each provides a lot more insight than nudging us to understand the writers’ intentions. Do you feel bad for Parthiban and other jail inmates? Do you feel bad for Kattabomman, Sunil Kumar and their ilk who are forced to bell the cat? Do you feel bad for the harbingers of justice who are mere smokescreens in the halls of power? It felt like Sorgavaasal reminds us of how simple it is to slip up from our own sheltered lives, because at the end of the day, all of us are mere pawns in a system… a system that thrives in the belief that no one has time to sit and ponder about the ones that are left behind in a path that, more often than not, is less a path, and more a vortex.
Sorgavaasal movie director: Sidharth Vishwanathan
Sorgavaasal movie cast: RJ Balaji, Karunaas, Sharaf U Dheen, Selvaraghavan, Saniya Iyappan
Sorgavaasal movie rating: 3 stars
