Doctor Review: Nelson delivers a dark comedy that is a laughter riot

Cast: Sivakarthikeyan, Vinay Rai, Priyanka Mohan, Yogi Babu, Redin Kingsley, Ilavarasu
Music: Anirudh
Direction: Nelson Dilipkumar

Most actor’s journey in Tamil cinema follows a template, which is designed by the Superstar Rajinikanth and further reaffirmed by actors like Vijay and Ajith. The template is to start in an antagonist role, then move to protagonist roles with romance films, followed by comedy films and venture into action films. If audience accept the actor as action hero, he/she is a star now, starts playing larger than life roles and goes on a mission to save the farmers (sorry, I meant the world). Sivakarthikeyan is one such actor who has a similar journey. When actors start doing larger than life roles, they never tend to go back to any other genres.

That’s why there is not much of comedy films from the stars. The very few comedy films in the recent past like Mandela, Oh my Kadavule were not from big stars. Doctor comes in such a time where there is a scarcity for good comedy films from our favourite stars. In this film, Siva plays a military doctor Varun, an interesting character who is a practical, disciplined and stoic person. In fact, he smiles only once throughout the film. He is also restrained in terms of body language and it’s very refreshing to see Siva portray this character. It’s easily one of his best performances.

One of my most favourite thing about this film is how Varun’s character is consistently written and how the heroic moments are all subtle that the film doesn’t have savior complex. The comedy scenes are so amazong. Nelson manages to make humour out of serious scenarios. There is scene after scene making us laugh until we gasp for breath. Every character except Sivakarthikeyan scores big in comedy. Redin Kingsley and Yogi Babu are show-stealers. The metro scene is my favourite that deliciously fusions actions and comedy.

After a hilarious first half, the antagonist, Terry (Vinay Rai), is introduced and the film takes a little serious tone. Vinay brings in a bit of freshness to a stereotypical character. The serious stuffs of the film are not convincingly written. Especially the third act felt like the director took audience for granted. If it was written more logically the film would’ve been a wholesome experience. Nevertheless, the film is still absolutely entertaining and I can wait to watch what Nelson is going to do with Vijay, another star who hasn’t done comedy in a while but great in it, in his next venture Beast.

Verdict: Nelson delivers a dark comedy that is a laughter riot