Sinam Movie Review: This anti-rape 'message' film punishes its audience

Paari Venkat (Arun Vijay), the protagonist of Sinam encourages everyone in the film to rage over injustice. He even breaks the fourth wall to share the same advice with the audience. Ironically, the immediate injustice we spot is committed by the film itself. In an attempt to present a strong message against sexual violence, GNR Manohar ends up delivering a deeply-disturbing, voyeuristic gaze on rape. He milks it further by placing multiple callbacks and references to a gruesome crime. This treatment comes across as a shocker in a film that does have its heart at the right place for most parts. What adds fuel to the fire is the convoluted and debatable resolution the film gives to such crimes.

Director: GNR Kumaravel
Cast: Arun Vijay, Pallak Lalwani, Kaali Venkat

The alarming lack of novelty in Sinam is another injustice that never lets the film soar above mediocrity. Starting from the conflict and the staging to the final message, we have seen it all a thousand times before, and GNR Kumaravel delivers one more uninventive rehash with the same elements. Every character in Sinam is a caricature. To make Paari nobler than everyone, the director makes him an orphan helping orphans. On the other end, the perpetrators are so evil that they have necrophiliac tendencies. The binaries just keep on piling up. The only redeeming factor in this otherwise shoddy thriller is the earnestness of Arun Vijay. But strangely, Paari is written as a character who hardly reacts to even the harshest of truths, and even the little investment we have with the protagonist vanishes into thin air.

The final nail in the coffin is the extremely loud and incessant background score of Shabir. The title card whistle is played in the most random moments and this piece of music is in a never-ending loop that is just a simply painful experience. While it is understandable that Sinam aims to be an emotionally stirring film, the absence of silence and a subtler score only disconnects the audience from the film.

Though Sinam aspires to give the audience a lasting message, it only left me with a lot of questions. "Can a cop investigate his family member's death, overruling the conflict of interest?"," How a violent sexual assault remains a mystery to an expert cop, till the autopsy?", "Why doesn't he seek the help of fellow cops or cybercrime when his family member goes missing?" This list too just keeps going on and on. 

Many times in the film, Arun Vijay beats the rowdies to a pulp and shouts, "Tholachiruven!" (I'll make you lose your life) But the one thing that clearly got lost in Sinam is a well-written script.