Singam 3 movie review: Suriya's film is like a McDonald's burger; made to standard specifications

Suriya’s Singam 3 (known as Si3, and directed by Hari) is a template franchise film. Much like a burger at McDonald’s, it tries to keep its ingredients and taste the same. So we have the basic format of the Singam franchise being repeated in Si3 as well — which is of the super-cop taking on a cavalcade of baddies single-handedly. Once again, it is Suriya’s charisma that makes the film work to a certain extent. [caption id=“attachment_3275122” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Suriya in Singam 3 or Si3[/caption] The story, presentation, loud background score, aerial shots and close ups are again the same as in the previous films. Don’t look for an iota of realism: it’s all about an angry cop spewing punch lines, bashing up more than a dozen goons at the same time, who fly into the air when hit. It is followed by dream song sequences with the heroines in exotic foreign locales and a separate comedy track by a battery of comedians. And the baddies are all mean, loud mouthed guys who can never win against the omnipotent superhero Durai Singam. The story is simple enough. It can be encapsulated like this: the hero Durai Singam (Suriya), a Tamil Nadu cop, is on deputation in Andhra Pradesh to solve the mystery behind the murder of the Vizag city police commissioner. During his investigation, he comes to know that an international gang run by Vittal (Thakur Anoop Singh) in Australia  is shipping medical and e-waste to India. Singam takes on an army of baddies and how he lures Vittal to India  to nab him, forms the rest of this predictable tale that has no thrilling twists or turns. Suriya dominates the film and is terrific as Durai Singam, a typical Tamil commercial cinema Dirty Harry type cop and is the saving grace of Si3. The climax chase and the fight scenes are well choreographed. Those were the plus points. Now for the negatives: Anushka Shetty, cast as Suriya’s wife, looks too mature in the part. Shruti Haasan, in a badly written role, does not fit into this action movie. The separate comedy track of  Soori and company sticks out like a sore thumb. The music and background score by Harris Jayaraj is loud enough, as befits a Hari film, although the song ‘Wi, Wi, Wi Wi-Fi’ is catchy. On the whole, Si3 is a typical masala film which has its moments, but these are few and far between. The only silver lining is Suriya, who makes it watchable.