Rating: *
Of late there have been memorable female cops like Sonakshi Sinha in Dahaad and Sania Malhotra in Kathal. Sadly the very talented Varalaxmi Sarathkumar who was knockout appealing recently in the Telugu film Michael as Vijay Sethupathi’s other-in-arms, is placed in this woefully uninspiring cops film.
Playing a doughty super-cool cop Archana Varalaxmi is in search of her boyfriend,a cop who disappears one night while chasing a gangster who specializes in land usurpation.
In a sequence straight out of hell,the distressed parents of a missing girl return home to see the gangster Naga (Subramanya Siva) calmly eating on their dining table. “I made idli for myself,” Naga explains chattily while the couple with the missing daughter shudders.
Honestly, the writing needed to be less frisky and far more alert. The corrupt cop Guru who colludes with the gangster Naga is an interesting aberration in legal system. The actor Amit Bhargav playing Guru has a good screen presence. But his grey interpretation of the khaki culture remains unexplored.
Like the recent Bholaa,much of the action occurs in a police station. Director Dayal Padmanabhan treats the khaki space as a playground for some cheap sleuthing.Varalaxmi Sarathkumar as the feisty cop determined to find her missing boyfriend , is cut down to size, not so much by her gender as the poorly conceived plot which does a gender-free desecration of all characterization.
Midway through the film, a new cop hero Nedunchezhiyan(played by Aarav) is introduced. And off goes the plot on another spin which doesn’t have the desired effect of whetting out curiosity. The constant heaving and lurching in the storytelling just makes us nauseous.
I came away from Maruthi Nagar Police Station with not a single pleasant thought. The principal actors look dapper in their uniform. But beyond their looks, they seem clueless about where all this is leading to.
