R ARIVANANTHAM
Director Suresh Sangaiah, in his usual way is quite apparent in his second film ‘Sathya Sodhanai’ too, as he wants to hold up a mirror to society and pinpoint how the systems of the society for the well-being of humankind aren’t performing their job, and the need to understand the difference between benevolent and being astute. When men in khakhi are greedy and doubting Thomases, even honest persons have to face ‘Satya Sodhanai’.
Both of his movies deal with innocent people stuck in precarious situations because of a stranger’s death, and how people around them, in the name of solving the issue, try to milk it for their benefit.
- Directed by Suresh Sangaiah, the film presents a unique blend of humour and rural flavours
- ‘Sathya Sodhanai’ follows the trials and tribulations of Pradeep (Premgi Amaren), a gullible man who spots a dead body in a remote location and decides to hand over the person’s gold chain and mobile to the cops
- When men in khakhi are greedy and doubting Thomases, even honest persons have to face ‘Satya Sodhanai’
But in his second outing, the simple premise doesn’t allow the film to do justice to its theme and the jarring tonal differences don’t come in handy either. Premgi’s character Pradeep is shown to be an illiterate who can converse in English; he’s jobless but walks into a police station as he owns it, he’s naive but once he escapes with a walkie-talkie from the station, he uses it to get freebies from villagers.
But the film does have its fair share of good stretches that are hilarious. Suresh’s first film worked majorly for the style of humour that’s unique to the rural backdrop where he set his film and it’s no different here. When one of the convicts at the station is asked for his name — and the reply is Vairamuthu — the cop asks why one would have such a nice name and resort to such activities. In another scene, where a video recording is crucial and the characters are glued to a TV screen, one of them goes “Enna, CCTV vela seiyudhu?” If only such self-awareness had been shown throughout the film, it would’ve turned out better.
Story
‘Sathya Sodhanai’ follows the trials and tribulations of Pradeep (Premgi Amaren), a gullible man who spots a dead body in a remote location and decides to hand over the person’s gold chain and mobile to the cops. He also moves the body a few metres away because even a dead person would prefer a tree’s shade instead of being under the scorching sun. Driven by his honest intentions, he decides to surrender the ornaments to the nearby Arupukottai police station. This, unsurprisingly, snowballs into an issue when Pradeep realises that the body was supposed to have more jewels on him. However, his virtuous act takes a turn for the worse as the greedy officials at the station refuse to believe his true intentions and instead take him into custody. The cops feel the only way they can get to it is by tormenting poor Pradeep.
At one point, Pradeep escapes from the station with a walkie talkie that belongs to the officials. What follows is a series of funny incidents that lead us to the character who was behind the murder.
Just like Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘The Story of My Experiments with Truth’ which is titled ‘Sathiya Sodhanai’ in Tamil — in which he journals his life from early childhood through to 1921 — Pradeep also shares his life stories as a series of events that led him to where he is. But those scenes lead to no man’s land thanks to the limitations of the script. Apart from Premji, who is a brilliant casting choice, it’s the cops, especially Kuberan (Mohan) and Mahadevan (Selva Murugan), who steal the show along with the old lady.
