Settai is a Tamil comedy film directed by R. Kannan. A remake of the 2011 Hindi film, Delhi Belly, it stars Aarya, Anjali, Santhanam, Premji Amaran and Hansika Motwani.
The film will be dubbed in Telugu as Naughty Boys.
Movie: Settai
Directed by R. Kannan
Produced by Ronnie Screwvala, Siddharth Roy Kapur
Written: John Mahendran
Screenplay: G. Dhananjayan, John Mahendran, R. Kannan
Story: Arshad Bhatia
Star Cast: Aarya as Jayaganthan, Hansika Motwani as Madhu, Santhanam as Nagaraj, Premji Amaren as Cheenu, Anjali as Shakthi, Nassar, Ali, Subbu Panchu, Suja Varunee, Chitra Lakshman as Murugaraj, Nakshatra Nagesh as Gayathri, Neetu Chandra
Music: S. Thaman
Cinematography: PG Muthaiah
Editing: Leo John Paul
Studio: UTV Motion Pictures
Settai is a remake of the 2011 Bollywood comedy, Delhi Belly. The film was loved by critics and audience alike, and was also nominated in several categories in the 57th Filmfare awards. Will the Tamil remake, which is said to have been tuned to suit Tamilian sensibilities, do the same?
From Delhi Belly, Settai is inspired, which was released in the year 2011. At the box office owing to his grand success, in Tamil the production house UTV Motion Pictures has decided to remake it. While Delhi Belly had some adult content and to suit the audiences here obscene dialogues the Tamil version has been made.
Director Kannan has wielded the megaphone for this venture.
After the success of Boss Engira Bhaskaran and Premji Amaran, Aarya and Santhanam are teaming up has joined them this time. With Aarya for the first time, Hansika Motwani and Anjali are pairing up. n Tollywood Thaman, who is one of the leading music directors as well as Kollywood, has scored the music for this movie. There are huge expectations on Settai, especially among the younger generation.
You might not know that an ordinary afternoon might change your lives from rags to riches and one may find his true soulmate. So are the Jayakanthan (a) JK (Aarya), Nagarajan aka Nadupakkam Nakki (Santhanam) and Cheenu (Premgi Amaran), who are working as journalists for a mediocre newspaper. Everything goes well for JK as he falls in love with rich and beautiful Madhu (Hansika Motwani) and their marriage plans are preponed.
On an ordinary and usual afternoon, Madhu insists JK to deliver a parcel to a place, which goes through the hands of Nakki and Cheenu only to reach a wrong destination. Apparently, a bunch of baddies (led by Nasser) is on the hunt of them to get back their asset. Meanwhile, journalist Shakthi (Anjali), the close pal of this trio gets into the drama that is followed by a chain of events narrated in a humorous way.
When a blockbuster commercial movie goes to remake, it would remain as an easy job for the filmmakers to add the ingredients of regional adaptation. On the contrary, it doesn’t turn to be as easy as this for a unique concept. When Aamir Khan decided to make ‘Delhi Belly‘, he was completely conscious that his target audience is none other than the multiplex crowd for its content. It looks like Dhananjayan, director Kannan and writer John Mahendran wanted to attract the mass audience and consequently penned the screenplay and dialogues. Albeit the witty liners of Santhanam keeping us intact, the substance of originality seems to be missing somewhere in the middle of drama. Nothing to blame except the inclusion of too many songs.
Of course, they have been shot exotically across the scenic foreign locations, but after a certain point of time, we tend to question are they really essential. Coming down to dialogues, it’s obvious that Santhanam‘s character is painted with a hilarious quotient, but too often used slangs shrinks our eyes. Premgi Amaran doesn’t appear more than 20mins in this film, but his innocence and humor blend together makes us laugh. Aarya remains silent and slightly misses the energy throughout the film, but he deserves a pat for picking up this role. Anjali has been depicted stylishly and in spite of missing her original voice, the dubbed voice sounds pretty good.
Hansika Motwani, the barbie doll keeps the young lads in transfixed state as you cannot stop admiring her beautiful looks.
Technically, the cinematography looks pretty decent and cinematographer PG Muthaiah has captured the ambience perfectly. Especially the art work of the room, where Aarya–Santhanam–Premgi Amaran stay is designed in a naturalistic manner.
The background score of Thaman is okay and it looks like the makers purposely wanted to name Aarya as JK to replicate the famous song ‘Bhaag DK Bose‘ from the original version to strike with similarities.
While all the actors are pretty beautiful and handsome, it would have been really good if they got something more challenging role to perform as well. Perhaps, one cannot expect the actors to screech and pump their energy in a comedy drama, but there could have been some sort of good exhibition, which goes missing.
Overall, it’s a middling comedy drama by the duo Aarya–Santhanam that previously delivered a hilarious laughter-riot Boss Engira Baskaran.
Watch Settai without expectations and you may enjoy spending a couple of hours with a different kind of entertainment.
Verdict: Time Pass movie for summer…
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