Sirai - acquitting the soul

 

Sirai

2025, Tamil

Genre: Police Drama

Director: Suresh Rajakumari

Stars: Vikram Prabhu, LK Akshay Kumar, Anishma Anilkumar, Ananda Thambirajah

Mohan's Measure ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Sirai's greatness lies in its contradictions.  It is a police film with little investigation, a courtroom drama without an actual trial, and a human story about the most inhuman situations.  Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, it is a message movie, without an in-your-face message.  As such it is a thinking person's film, one that is a lot more about substance than style.

The plot is straightforward. A cop named Kathiravan is assigned to escort a prisoner to Sivagangai for a court appearance. He is accompanied by two fellow cops who are seeing it as a paid vacation. But the real story lies in the prisoner, who though guilty, is also without doubt a human being, a victim to an overworked system that fails to see that.

The prisoner, Abdul, weaves his story in flashback, revealing acts of desperation that led to the unintentional crime.  While there is a love story involved, it cleverly turns not as distraction, but as the meaning to this all.  The believability of the story is proven to the cop, and we see in him something that is not found in the opening scenes, a humanity built on his own maturity, and his own love for his spouse. The empathy is poignant, creating an almost father-son bond between the young prisoner and the policeman. Vikram Prabhu's plays Kathiravan in a stoic way, but his facial expressions somehow reveal his inner compassion. 

The story can at time feel predictable, but what keeps it in motion is some of the finest acting we have seen in a while, along with a crisp plot that avoids the devices found in other Indian movies. 

Underlying it all, the message hits home.  But it is said in moments, almost in passing, as though it were obvious. That is the stuff of art, and that's what makes Sirai truly good cinema.