Retro Movie Review
on May 1, 2025
Cast: Suriya, Pooja Hegde, Joju George, Jayaram, Vidhu Pratap, Nassar, Prakash Raaj, Shriya Saran (Cameo)
Crew:
Cinematography by Shreyaas Krishna
Editing by Shafique Mohamed Ali
Music by Santhosh Narayanan
Written & Directed by Karthik Subbaraj
Produced by Jyothika, Suriya, Kaarthekeyen Santhanam, Rajsekar Pandian
Suriya has huge market in Telugu States while he is a big star in Tamil Cinema. The actor has been delivering continuous flops theatrically from past decade. While his Jai Bhim, Soorarai Pottru released only on OTT platforms. Hoping for a big comeback the actor joined hands with Karthik Subbaraj for Retro. Let's discuss about the movie in detail.
Plot:
Paarivel (Suriya) is an orphan adopted by a gangster Tilak (Joju George) upon his wife's insistence. Paari goes to become Tilak's "Iron" Right handman. He falls in love with Rukhmini (Pooja Hegde) and for her, he decides to give up on his life as a gangster. But on their wedding day, fight breaks between Paari and his father, as Paari hides Gold Fish container.
Paari cuts off Tilak's right hand and Rukhmini leaves him. He gets arrested and tries to take his jail life as punishment. After 5 years, he finds Rukhmini is living at Black Island in Andamans. He takes an identity as laughing doctor Chaplin with real doctor (Jayaram) as his compounder. At the island, he finds out that the people live as slaves under King Michael (Vidhu Pratap) and Rajavel (Nassar) rule. Will Rukhmini and Paari unite again? Watch the movie to know more.
Analysis:
Suriya gave his best to the film as Paari, who doesn't laugh wholeheartedly. His performance holds fort for this long drawn film with many subplots. His character becomes the cog in the wheel that takes this movie forward. While he did try his best, the script goes haywire with too many subplots changing the direction of the script.
Pooja Hegde is good in Rukhmini role and her de-glam look suits the character as well. Jayaram, Vidhu Pratap, Nassar, Prakash Raaj did well but the writing for their characters is not that great. Shriya Saran's special song also lacks any impact.
The movie suffers highly due to the long runtime and the story that goes all over the place. The screenplay could have been better even though the story is predictable. Better writing could have made these portions exciting. But Karthik sticks to his old and trusted narratives almost like he decided to repeat his cliched troupes.
Music by Santhosh Narayanan is good but there are too many songs packed into few minutes in the second half dropping the energy. The symbolisms that are a trademark for Karthik Subbaraj are laced all over the film and subsets like Love, Laughter, War, Cult, The One are all creative still, they don't deliver on the expectations we have from the director and actor.
Bottomline:
Retro could have been much better had the writing been much more focused.
Rating: 2.5/5
Disclaimer: The review is based on the personal opinion of the reviewer and the organisation doesn't take any sort of responsibility for the views expressed. Viewer discretion is advised.
Latest News
Video-Gossips
TeluguOne Service
Customer Service
Live Help 24/7Customer Care
Send your Queries to
