This amateurish bundle of footage makes you search for aspirin even before the end credits roll. Karthik Naren confesses in every interview that he looks up at Hitchcock, Nolan & Mani Ratnam as his inspiration. Right from frame one the director's urge to copy the making style from the west was evident. A cliche story, with one dimensional characters having no backstory and pathetic cast (except Arun Vijay and Prasanna) makes this less than 2 hour film tiresome. Every character in the movie was Karthik Naren. They are immodest and full of conceit and never fail to speak in English with little Tamil words sowed in between. Except shooting with guns, the characters have no role to play. The scenes were theoretically narrated instead of showing them visually. To top it all no movie in any region would have used slow motion this bad as in Mafia. The film's content was insufficient to even shoot a short film. Arun Vijay and Prasanna can proudly treasure this as their showreels. The climax twist gave no excitement as the time was already wasted. Mafia is indeed a failed attempt (rather a spoof) in mimicking Hollywood style crime thrillers. May be the unanimous praise for the director's earlier attempt D16 made him think like other commercial directors that audience will graze whatever you feed. The movie is the work of an immature director who has to learn making original films leaving aside his inspirations.
2 stars. 1 for Arun Vijay and 1 for Prasanna.
