Aranmanai 4 Movie Review: Sundar C retells the same story for the fourth time!

With every new installment of Aranmanai, filmmaker Sundar C becomes more brazen in plotting a mind-numbingly crude, shallow, and unimaginative narrative. In Aranmanai 4, Sundar again plays the hero, Saravanan, who shoulders the responsibility of saving humanity. In this edition, he is a struggling lawyer. He struggles because he refuses to take cases from dishonest people. So he and his aunt are starving. You assume that he's one of those old-school heroes who won't mind risking his life for the greater good or protecting the weak. But, no.

For example, a runaway couple seeks Saravanan's legal help, and when he learns that the girl's father is a big gangster of sorts, he decides to drop the case immediately. He hands over the girl to her homicidal father and advises her to marry anyone her father points to. He only decides to save the girl when he learns her name is Selvi, which is also his sister's name. Selvi escaped being a victim of a possible honour killing thanks to her name. Wow! Is that the mark of a hero who fights for truth?

ALSO READ: Ahead of Aranmanai 4 release, Sundar C opens up on reviving Sangamithra 

Wait! It gets more ludicrous. In the very next scene, Saravanan learns from a cop that his sister has died by suicide. Now, you expect a big emotional showdown of a brother who loves his sister to heaven and back, right? It is devastating news, and it must shatter Saravanan emotionally. But, no. Sundar, as a director and actor, is clueless about how to show trauma and its devastating effects on the human psyche.

Neither Saravanan nor his aunt, played by Kovai Sarala, carry any signs of sorrow, loss, or mourning. Not just Saravanan and his family, but the entire village assumes a nonchalant attitude towards the untimely and mysterious deaths of a happily married couple. The cops and the president of the village, in effect, tell Saravanan to enjoy the countryside till the village festival is over, and they can find a solution to these issues.

Cut to the next scene, Saravanan seems to be mesmerized by Maaya (Raashii Khanna), a doctor who is treating his comatose niece. There is no place for real emotions in this movie. And Saravanan is joined by two other idiots, played by Yogi Babu and VTV Ganesh, who heavily borrow tropes from Vadivelu gags to fill our screen time. Their farce is so old and tired.

And then we have Selvi (Tamannaah Bhatia) floating around the house and terrorizing her own children. Why?

The plot of Aranmanai 4 goes something like this: an evil entity has been unleashed, and it begins to torment innocent people. Now, it falls on our hero's shoulders to destroy the evil with divine assistance. Yes, this was the plot of Aranmanai 3, 2, and 1. Should Sundar C decide to make Aranmanai 5, which in all likelihood he will, he's unlikely to change the plot.

The question is, do filmmakers like Sundar C assume that our lives are so dull that they need to make such pointless, time-killing, 3-hour-long yawn-fests to distract us from our realities?