Retro is probably Surya's worst film till date, declares A Ganesh Nadar.
Let's start off by saying that Retro -- short for 'Retrogarde' -- makes absolutely no sense.
After playing powerful roles as Air Deccan founder Captain Gopinath (Soorarai Pottru) and the fearless Judge Chandru (Jai Bhim), Surya is reduced to performing like a puppet in Retro, who dances and fights at the puppeteer's will.
Director Karthik Subbaraj had the best talent in the business -- in Surya, Pooja Hegde, Shriya Saran, Nassar, Prakash Raj and the irrepressible Jairam -- but he has wasted them all.
Retro is set in the Andaman Nicobar islands.
An overlord (Nassar reduced to a caricature of a gangster, who goes through the entire movie drinking and mumbling) is surrounded by slaves, who have to fight among themselves to entertain him. But the weapons are made from rubber so nobody gets hurt!
Then there is a gang of smugglers, who try to smuggle goldfish out of India. We are later told that the goldfish are not fish but something else.
Prakash Raj is a corrupt politician as well as a gangster smuggler. But nothing in the movie makes him out to be a smuggler, gangster or politician.
Staring angrily at people doesn't make you scary, but this talented actor is reduced to just that.
Pooja Hegde looks stunning but her expressions don't connect with what is happening on screen.
Shriya Saran goes from a Rajinikanth heroine to an item dancer.
Music Director Santosh Narayanan has decided that all the songs, whatever the occasion is, must be dance-worthy.
So whether the situation is happy or sad, right in the middle of an emotional scene or a violent fight, we have dance sequences.
The fight scenes lack imagination. Henchmen fling themselves at our hero but bounce off in different directions.
In one scene, our hero says, 'I am getting bored of fighting the same group of people everyday. I thrashed them yesterday and today you are telling me to fight them again?'
Because of the thoughtful rubber weapons, there is no bloodshed even though there are a hundred fights.
The villain locks up a temple and the seers say the temple will open only when a child is born with a 'Vel spear' on his body.
So the hero has to be born and grow up and then take on the villain, who waits for him.
The story goes that Surya and Pooja meet in their childhood at the Varanasi Ghats. Fourteen years later, they meet again and fall in love.
Pooja wants a peaceful husband but Surya is an ace fighter, brought up by a smuggler dad.
Surya arrives at the island, not to fight battles or open closed temples. He goes there to find his lost love, who works as a veterinary doctor.
Surya acts as a doctor, who is spearheading laughter therapy. Strangely, he doesn't smile in the entire movie, until he gets his love back.
Jairam is reduced to a comedy doctor, and this is the man who was once said to be competition to Mammootty and Mohanlal.
Retro is probably Surya's worst film till date. One really hopes that he goes back to enacting real life characters in biopics.
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