Film Review 'Champion': A dreary revenge drama that fails to leave an impact

This is another film that is set in the milieu of North Chennai. Jones (Vishwa) is a youngster, whose ambition is to represent India in football. Having lost his father at a young age, his mom restrains him from pursuing his dream for untold reasons.

However, he practises the game without her knowledge and opens up to his mom when he meets a coach named Shanthakumar (Narain), who was his dad’s friend. His mother Jaya still warns him sternly. A persistent Jones goes on a hunger strike and is hospitalised. Jaya doesn’t have an option but meets Shanthakumar years after her husband’s death and asks him to help Jones out in pursuing his dreams. While these scenes make for 20 minutes of content for the first half, the romantic portions in Jones’ school and college days come across as speed breakers. The school scenes are redundant and do not help the film’s progress. Towards the interval, Manoj Bharathiraja’s portions as Gopinath Thiraviyam (Jones’s dad) help the film pick up some pace and his screen presence is quite refreshing. Once the reason for Gopi’s death is revealed, the second half becomes predictable.

The second half of the film has nothing new to offer and 15 minutes into it, we were left to wonder where the story is heading towards and what Susienthiran is trying to convey. Champion is just an amalgamation of hundreds of Tamil films as well as added to Susienthiran’s previous flicks. The story deviates from its template of a sports film and ends up becoming a below-average commercial revenge drama. With loose ends to several characters and stereotypical dialogues, even a 108-minute-watch is exhausting. It is hard to believe that it comes from Susienthiran’s the maker of blockbusters like Naan Mahan Alla and Vennilla Kabaddi Kuzhu. He has lost his midas touch with the screenplay. A predictable climax lets the film down. However, there are a few positives like Narain and Manoj’s performances.

They are the saving graces of the film along with Arrol Correli’s background music. There are two heroines in the film — Soumika Pandiyan and Mirnalini Ravi. Soumika’s character doesn’t resonate in the film. Mirnalini’s portions have a connect in the second half and lead to the anti-climax of the film. She justifies her screen presence that is unfortunately limited. Vishwa, the debutant actor is impressive as a footballer.

However, he struggles in the motional scenes and reminds us of commercial heroes of Tamil and Telugu of early 2000s. Overall, Champion is a disappointment and Susienthiran could havedone better.