Mafia: Chapter 1

You know those essays we used had to write in some point of our educational career. The answer to the question could with just one sentence but in order to look smart and hard working we build up our paper with pages and pages of unnecessary garbage. Once we run out of garbage idea, we would finally reveal that one sentence answer. Mafia is basically the movie version of that essay. The director builds a whole movie full of slow-motion scenes of guns loading and biceps that are completely pointless and the one sentence answer is the grand climax suspense. And believe me I am a huge fan of revelation suspense movies. Like those are literally my most favorite kind climax suspense, but as much as these revelations are exciting to see the all the excitement depends on how intriguing the scenes that lead to the big revelation are. If the scenes that lead to the revelation have no steam then the revelation is basically pointless because it is going to have no impact on the audience. Director Karthick Naren completely fails to create and connection with the audience whatsoever. We end up just sitting there like idles with no emotions like fear, anger, or excitement (all of which are very important for a successful thriller) not overcoming us. This led to me reacting with just an "oh" to the great climax revelation. In fact the villain had to praise himself powerful because the character created for him is one-dimensional. However, I wouldn't say the movie was a complete waste. I really enjoyed staring at Arun Vijay's well-built body and hairstyle along with Prassanna and Priya Bhavni Shankar. I went in with huge expectations because of D16. I thought it would be similar to Vikram Vedha but I guess if you go in with no expectation it could be a decent one time watch.

Its a disappointment if you go with the expectation of D16 from Karthik Naren. Lucky that this movie doesnt have much Love-Sentiments scenes, However this movie is filled with lots of slow motion repeated shots which is a big turn off.

Runtime is around 2 hours, however the movie content is only about an hour. 1 hour is added due to extensive use of Slow motions in every scenes.

Apart from the last 15 minutes, nothing goes interesting in this. Story, Dialogues, Acting is totally boring. Not a bit of Karthik Naren touch in this. Not even one casting went good. Arun vijay exists with his pale face and slow motion of him walking, holstering gun, loading and unloading gun, takes 5 minutes to say one simple dialogue. Prasanna is not upto the mark for a Mafia boss, even with suits, cigars, smokey scenes no impressions created. Priyabhavani Shankar - no comments, no idea why she is in this movie.

Even if you go with low expectations, you wont enjoy the movie. This is just a chapter one, atleast some interesting story line only generated in this movie on the climax. Hence I really hope Chapter 2 will be better than Chapter 1

5 out 10

Movie has a good engaging story and style of direction of a Gautham Vasudev movie but the screenplay lacks the punch for the story could have been better. The last action sequence looks quality less. Cinematography looks good and also the ending to give a sequel is also a good twist. Acting of Prasanna was cool until the end due to the lack of screenplay there are some brilliant moments in the movie to show us villian class

As Director Karthick Karen made us all sit in the edge of the seat with his previous thriller movie D16, Expectations for this movie was high and the classy look of Arun Vijay and Prassana made it further more fascinating..Fans were looking for something like Narcos but to be frank the movie had actually just 3 scenes which was dragged because of the slow motion shots which was just irritating after a point and the bgms were misplaced in many places..Apart from that,The movie is quiet good..All the actors have done well especially Prassana but he hasn't given much space to show his full potential..The best part of the movie is the climax which sets up for the sequel.. Overall if you are a fan of action movies,you can watch it but don't set your expectations high..

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.