Don Movie Review: Sivakarthikeyan’s film is a mindless entertainer with a message

Director Cibi Chakravarthi’s Don starring Sivakarthikeyan, SJ Suryah and Samuthirakani is a fun entertainer with a message. While it gets a tad preachy towards the end, Don manages to impress for the most part.

Sivakrthikeyan’s Don, helmed by debutant director Cibi Chakravarthi, is a film with many interesting ideas. And that’s the best part. The film is a perfect cocktail of fun, emotions and great songs.

Don follows the story of Chakravarthi (Sivakarthikeyan), who hails from an economically backward family. A typical middle-class dad (Samuthirkani) forces his son to take up engineering so he can succeed in life. Any amount of opposition won’t work with his dad because he’s strict. He doesn’t want his son to take any risks. When he joins an engineering college, he just wants to have fun. And he finds different ways to do that.

In his college, he meets professor Boominathan (SJ Suryah), head of the Discipline Committee. He imposes archaic rule in the name of discipline and earns the wrath of Chakravarthi and other students. He comes up with a plan to teach Boominathan a lesson. In the process, he finds his calling and what he wants to do in life.

Cibi Chakravarthi shows a lot of promise in his first film, Don. He knows how to elevate a simple story and does it effortlessly with interesting ideas. By recreating iconic scenes from Vaali and Baasha, Don takes everyone on a nostalgic ride. And that’s why the film works to a great extent. The film, which is set in an engineering college, taps into realism and you are reminded of your professors. Yes, all kinds of them.

The nostalgic factor works to a great extent, especially, when the lecturer yells, ‘is this a class or a fish market?’ There are many such instances which take us back to college. Another major advantage of Don is that it is self-aware. It does not appropriate the exertive behaviour of the parents. The film also has a scene where Sivakarthikeyan says it’s not right to stalk or follow a girl once she says no. Finally!

Here's the trailer of Don:

Where the film falters is during the final act. When Don takes itself seriously, the emotional stretches do not work as much as they should. At one point, it appears as if Sivakarthikeyan’s Chakravarthi is taking lessons about familial values.