Seema Raja Movie Review: Sivakarthikeyan – Samantha Akkineni’s Romantic Drama Has All the Ingredients for a Masala Film Minus a Good Plot

One of the main reasons why I was excited to watch Seema Raja was because Simran was playing a badass villain in it, which is clear from the trailer itself. Yes, Sivakarthikeyan and Samantha were also one of the reasons to go watch the movie, but Simran was the main one for me. And the actress exceeded my expectations completely. I was blown by her performance. The film has everything that a masala movie needs but there are bits in the film that are either unnecessary or just not amusing. Sivakarthikeyan is a typical rich boy who is good at heart but is irresponsible and lazy.

He has named all his pets and even communicates with his pigeons. Now that is definitely a man I would personally want to marry. But coming back to the film, Samantha is a PT teacher who excels at Silambam, a popular martial art technique down South. She even teaches her students the said martial art. Samantha's role could have been written so well but it was a bummer and lacked personality. There is a scene where she is surrounded by men who challenge her to defeat them in Silambam. But instead of her fighting them off, Sivakarthikeyan makes an entry to save her from it.

My instant reaction to that scene was 'WHYYYYY?' I would have loved to see her fight. That would have made her character so strong and more attractive. But the director sure did make up for it in the end. Napolean plays Seema Raja's father and his scenes with Sivakarthikeyan are the funniest. There's action, heroism, land dispute, romance, a social cause/ problem and history (that has no connection to the plot), basically everything you need to make a masala film. With the audience in the theatres continuously hooting and screaming, I'm sure they'll love the movie.

There is also a scene with Raja Kadambavel, who is an ancestor of Seema Raja, and he even fought Alauddin Khilji once. Keerthy Suresh has a cameo in the film which was, like I said before, irrelevant. The entire history segment might make you want to scream and cheer for the actor but it makes absolutely no sense. Plight of the farmers and their land has been added just to make audiences emotional. It's a simple 'boy loves girl, their parents don't get along so boy and girl fight all odds to marry each other' story. The sub-plots are not at all required.

Yay!

- The production design is so good and colourful, it's a visual treat

- Humour and action

- Overall performances

- Loved that the film was animal-friendly and even promoted it a little bit

Nay!

- To much heroism, despite a strong female cast

- A lot of irrelevant sub-plots

- A history lesson that adds nothing to the plot

- A real-life problem (of the farmers) has been added (which is not given much importance) for no reason whatsoever

Final Verdict

I have a problem with how poorly Samantha's character was written. She could have been much more than what she was in the movie. Seema Raja is an entertaining film, has its humour in place and Sivakrthikeyan-Samantha's chemistry adds charm to the film. But it does suffer from a poorly written and executed plot. Have you watched the film yet? Tell us what you think in the comments below and stay tuned with us for more.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 13, 2018 03:16 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).