Express News Service
Samuthirakani is an interesting actor, who cleverly balances his loud, political films with fun, masala entertainers. He has made such a name for himself with the former that any film carrying a ‘message’ these days is categorised as a ‘Samuthirakani padam’. Good intentions aside, most of these films end up being patience tests for the audience. Thankfully, despite the extremely underwhelming trailers, the longdelayed Sangathalaivan isn’t one of them. The film gets most things right.
It doesn’t bite off more than it can chew. For instance, Sangathalaivan doesn’t try to address national politics or pretend to be a racy thriller. Instead, it is a slow-burn drama that deals with a localised issue and takes its time to set things up. Both the narrative and the characterisation give us the pleasant feeling of reading a novel from the 90s. Sangathalaivan also gets its politics right most of the time. We are introduced first to the village of Ramavaram,