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Join UsStar Cast: R Madhavan, Nayanthara, Siddharth & Others
Director: S Sashikanth
What’s Good: R Madhavan – he is the good, the better and the best!
What’s Bad: The shoddily written first half
Loo Break: Take it in the first half!
Watch or Not?: Yes.
Language: Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, English with subtitles.
Available On: Netflix
Runtime: 2 hours 25 minutes
User Rating:
Have you ever appeared in an examination for which you were never prepared? Or let me rephrase that – Have you ever prepared a whole night for your exam, and the next day, when you get the question paper, you realize it is not the subject you were preparing for? From there, you have two choices: either you write nothing and fail, or you write something and struggle to get passing marks!
R Madhavan appears in exactly such an examination, only difference being, he not just passes this examination, but he tops the entire class! Yes, the topper of the year! Let me start from the beginning so that you get a better context about the premise.
The movie, helmed by S Sashikanth, introduces the three main characters in the first ten minutes. Siddharth, who plays a cricketer Arjun Venkataraman, a celebrated man on the Indian cricket team, is struggling from non-performing lows. There is R Madhavan (Saravanan), a scientist who came to India after securing a degree from MIT (not Manipal from MIT from Boston), and there is Nayanthara, a school teacher Kumudha, who is Saravanan’s wife.
All of them have their personal struggles, and with every struggle, they have a choice – the dilemma to be the Hero or the villain! Interestingly, by the end of it, they all turn into a version of half Hero and half villain, beautifully summarizing the dilemmas of life and the impact of one’s decisions – they may be heroic for one but villainous for the other!
Test Movie Review: Script Analysis
Test beautifully struggles with the basic dilemma of good vs bad but never balances them or predicts the easier route for the film. Honestly, at times, it gets too confusing for my petite brain, and everything is so clueless in the first half that I feel exactly like that student who prepared for something else, and the question paper is for a totally different subject.
But the story takes an unbelievable jump in the second half as R Madhavan decides to turn the villain, giving up on struggles and taking the reigns of his life in his hands! Test begins with a very interesting choice – A hero will destroy you to save the world, and A villain will destroy the world to save you. Who are you, and how far will you go?
In the beginning the story makes itself very clear that it is about the basic dilemma of life – to be the good one or the bad one! But who decides the logic behing this good and bad is what the entire film transpires and translates into! The writing team, stumbles a lot during the first half but it is all very clear, once they decide to choose the captain of this match and it is none other than R Madhavan!
Before Madhavan, Nayanthara was struggling to choose her life and family expectations over her husband and his dreams. Similarly, there is R Madhavan, who struggles to be a family man or a man who rules the world and is a winner! Finally, Siddharth is in the dilemma of being a cricketer or a family man! Basically, each one of them has the same dilemma – to choose for themselves and their dreams or choose their family! That is why there are no clear lines between good and bad, right or wrong, and with every step these protagonists start to take, it seems like their understanding of being on the right side.
Test Movie Review: Star Performance
While there are three protagonists, R Madhavan clearly overshadows Nayanthara and Siddharth. They seem like extended support to this story that is ruled by Madhavan and his stellar performance as the Hero of his world and Villain of everyone else’s world! He has already bowled us as the Shaitaan, the title role in Ajay Devgn’s film, and interestingly, he plays a brilliant psychologically drained man here as well! While he starts as a brood who is just pissed off with the privileged class, he turns into a maniac by the end of it because it refuses to accept to take life as it is. Mad people are the only people he once announces, and by the end of it, he makes sure he proves it each and every second of his life!
Madhavan, in fact, is the man who elevates the story and a very flawed script to another level! If not for him, this film would have been destroyed in its first half with nowhere to go.
Nayanthara and Siddharth have equally flawed character arcs. They all get a chance to become a hero, but both of them surrender to the half-baked script and the sub-par writing!
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Test Movie Review: Direction, Music
Undoubtedly, S Sashikanth starts the film with a great premise, but the only issue is that he takes too long to set the premise! The film honestly does not even start till a good 60 – 70 minutes before it sits on Madhavan’s shoulders and crashes! From there, it is Madhavan’s willpower that picks up the pieces of a disaster and rebuilds this structure, pushing it to a respectable end with his performance! In fact, it is so disappointing to see Siddharth in a film and do nothing! Despite him turning a hero in an expected twist! There we said it! Probably, the choice he makes is not actually a heroic choice! Or maybe villains are more attractive than heroes! Coming to Nayanthara, Sashikanth fails to utilize her potential despite being a single woman handling two man-children in the form of Madhavan and Siddharth since the beginning!
I watched the film in Hindi and it took me back to that 90s era when a song called ‘Telephone Dhun Mein Hasne Wali, Melbourne Macchli Machalne Waali’ did not make any sense! Similarly, the songs in the film are terrible in Hindi! Right from the music to the song, everything is a disaster! I mean, I fail to understand this struggle of South Indian composers, making songs in Hindi. When they can deliver albums like Roja and Pushpa in Hindi as beautifully as in Tamil and Telugu! Anyway, it’s not that important discussion for a film that has more major issues than music!
Test Movie Review: The Last Word
R Madhavan clearly prepares for a Biology exam, not knowing it is the wrong schedule until he is handed over a Physics question paper in the examination hall! Like every student, he stumbles but takes hold of the situation with his calmness and writes the exam so successfully that he tops the class! This test cricket match could have been a disaster if Madhavan did not turn it into a T-20 in the last hours! Kudos to this man for saving the match, the film and the Test!
3.5 stars. (Madhavan clearly deserves that 0.5 star extra)!
Test Trailer
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