Chandru is an MBA graduate, who was raised by his granny and lives a carefree life with his friends in Mumbai with simply no need to have a job to support him. Srila on the other hand is a young driving instructor living with her father, a retired army officer. They accidentally run into each other in the melee of a shootout between cops and terrorists, where Chandru saves Srila and falls for her looks. The blossoming romance hits roadblocks when Srila’s father rejects Chandru as he has no job. Stung by the harsh treatment, Chandru tries hard to land a job and eventually gets one in a Middle East nation where he is caught in a conspiracy and his struggle to wriggle out of it forms the rest of the movie.
Language:
Tamil
Running Time:
156 min
Rating:
U
Release date:
2 October 2014
Directed by:
Ravi K Chandran
Produced by:
Elred Kumar
Jaya Raman
Written by:
Ravi K Chandran
Starring:
Jiiva
Thulasi Nair
Thambi Ramayya
V Jayaprakash
Nasser
Karunakaran
Music by:
Harris Jayaraj
Shot by:
Manush Nandan
Editing by:
A Sreekar Prasad
Distributed by:
Red Giant Movies
Gopuram Films

What’s Hot

  • Harris Jeyaraj is the unsung hero in keeping this movie in its place with quite a few mesmerizing tunes and a rocking background score back with flashes of brilliance from the Vetaiyaadu Vilayaadu days. The overall music output is also not the usual stereotype we associate with Harris as it offers good variety and is different in style. The ‘Aathangara…’ dance song has a great rhythm and is cleverly utilized well with a Bhangra version included in the background score as well.
  • The experience of the director in handling the camera shines down on Manush Nandan’s work from the first frame which starts off with a chaotic shootout. The introduction of the lead pair amidst flying bullets is executed well with cool camera tricks and special effects. The best of visuals are reserved for the songs and action sequences which are pleasing to the eyes.

What’s Not

  • Despite boasting of a packed start cast headed by Jiiva with the likes of seasoned campaigners Nasser, Jayaprakash and supporting actors in their peak like Karunakaran and Thambi Ramaiah, the weak characterizations leaves them heavily underutilized. This spells doom for the movie on the whole as none of them are able to command screen presence.
  • The storyline is undesirably wavering and is found oscillating between multiple tracks. Starts off with action, shifts to romance, inexplicably shifts to struggle for human rights, back to romance, next to some revenge and then to punishing criminals. This inexperience of the director and results if poor execution of a weak script that lacks focus.
  • The story is straight out of yesteryear Tamil entertainers with a hero starting off being single and happy, love at first sight for the hero, love at first fight for the heroine, trouble ahead of marriage and ending up fighting criminals. The dearth of creativity hits the audience hard barely a few minutes into the movie and the any further hope remains a distant dream for the remaining 2.5 hours of brain freeze.

Badges

Verdict

Verdict Stamp

With great hype comes greater burden of meeting expectations – ‘Yaan’ falls prey to this adage as it flounders at the start and fails to keep on its feet as it is dealt several body blows due to a weak script, poor execution and ill-advised knots in the storyline. A good one to give a miss!