Selfie Tamil film review: New area but flawed treatment

 Selfie is from Mathi Maran and is said to be from Vetrimaaran school of film making. This film has all the rawness that goes with a Vetri Maaran film but lacks characters that has an audience connect. The area chosen is the sale of professional courses seat in private colleges and here the difference is that the subject goes into how the parents are lured  by colleges to buy the seats from organized mafia backed touts and the behind the scene operation. 

The whole story starts with the hero learning that his father paid a donation for an engineering seat in a college where seats were going abegging. He decides to start this racket and earn money. The first attempt to sell a medical college seat for a premium goes for a toss and this makes him fall foul of the bad world of the racket. The question here is which parent or the aspirant who can give Rs 65 lakhs for a seat be so dumb enough to not even ask anybody about the college ranking ?.

The friend of the hero ( G V Prakash) commits suicide after the first biz deal flops and thugs turn up at his house for money. This should have motivated the hero to either bust the racket that took the life of his pal or push him to be a kingpin in the racket ( as he says the lure is not easy to avoid). Both are absent.

The focus shifts to the so far silent character Ravi played by Gautam Menon , the mafia kingpin. From here, this character gets a buildup that he turns out to be  a noble man who keeps to his word and delivers what he promises. He does not over charge his clients and very loyal to his boss ( college chairman). Towards the climax you feel for this Don getting killed by his own boss men. When hero turns a new leaf and remembers his dead friend, you will hoot him out.

If being disheveled and sporting a constipated look is what the role demands, G V Prakash does it to perfection. The songs ???. Lets forget it. Camerawork is only saving grace. In short , Selfie is a Gautam Vasudev Menon film ( acting wise). Many say that Menon's role is inspired from Vendar Movies Madan life. Madan was the man for SRM Group and not any college that had to hoodwink parents to enroll students. Also Madan openly advertised his link with SRM owner in his movie production credits. P. S. Vagai Chadrasekar  shows that he still has it in him . The scene he speaks to his repenting son over the phone is a treat.

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