Friday Movie Review: A crime drama that struggles to surprise

Friday Movie Review:

Friday is a story that unfolds over a single Friday night. Throughout the night, several rowdies are mysteriously killed one after another, and the film tries to uncover the real mastermind behind these murders . The movie is directed by Hari Venkatesh featuring performances from Mime Gopi, KPY Dheena, Aneesh Masilamani, Ramachandra Durairaj, Kalaiyarasan, Siddhu Kumaresan and several others. With no big stars or familiar faces in the cast, carrying a full-length two-hour film is a tough task, and the director deserves appreciation for attempting to make it.

Although the story takes place in one night, the screenplay frequently shifts into nonlinear flashbacks. These sudden transitions lack clarity at times, which reduces the overall grip and excitement the film tries to build. Despite the abundance of violent sequences, the team has made sure not to make them disturbing for the audience, which is commendable.

Mime Gopi, Dheena, and Aneesh Masilamani deliver solid performances and do justice to their characters. The background score by Dumey works as a strength in several scenes, while in some places it settles into an eerie silence, matching the mood.

However, the core plot—“he who lives by the sword dies by the sword”—is something cinema has explored for decades. The film doesn’t offer anything particularly fresh or surprising in this regard, which turns out to be a major drawback. While the team behind Friday has sincerely attempted to make a film using a limited budget and a cast of mostly new faces, the screenplay and scene construction could have benefited greatly from more novelty. With fresher ideas and stronger narrative clarity, the film could have been far more compelling.