The title of the movie 'Chennaiyil Oru Naal' - A day in Chennai suggests that it would be a drama or a thriller. In my opinion, it is basically meant to be a thriller, but has a good amount of drama in it. So whatever is your interpretation, you will not be disappointed.
The poster and the trailer of the movie very well indicate that it is a multi-starer. Not only it has lot of well known faces, but it has a few new faces as well. So lot of characters and thus a multi cast in true sense.
The introduction of movie is with a small narration in the background, which tried to suggest the tone of the story, but rest of the movie does not live up to the expectation of the initial narration. Handling so many casts is definitely a challenge for any director, especially on how to introduce them and when to introduce them. But I feel that the director had made a conscious effort in that. The first 15 minutes tries to give us a glimpse of all the characters involved. All characters get an apt share of their piece of cake in the introduction. All this done over a song. Apart from this there is one more song within the first 20 minutes. If you are thinking, over dose of songs, then answer is 'no'. That is about it, no more songs.
The story slowly picks up pace, all the different characters start converging, converging towards the day about which the story is woven. A tragedy is what joins these dots. As you start wondering, what next, and then the movie slowly walks into a weak plot. The director in an attempt to make it a thriller, and to some extent, it turns out to be, but eventually marches into a high drama. Since the director is attempting a thriller, to keep up the pace, he tries a lot of things in the middle part of the movie. That spoils the taste of the movie. It is where the director, the story teller, loses the plot and the story turns into a mega drama, that does keep the audience on the edge of the seat, but for the wrong reasons.
Now instead of beating round the bush, let me come to the point directly. Why I call it a weak plot is because, the story line suggests that, to save one life, one can put thousands of life in jeopardy, which is still morally a novel idea, but the means chosen to achieve this is the most impractical one. Even worse, the movie in fact suggests that all those who finally get involved in the decision making to save the life, do that not for the sake of the life, but for their names to be etched in the history books. Even if we were to digest this, it was not something unique - it was a heart transplant and it was not the first time that it would have happened in the world or for that matter in India or even Tamil Nadu. So, not sure what was this all about making it to the history.
There are lot of other things that can be discussed in greater detail, but I am not here to dissect the movie. At the same time there were few moments in the movie that was exceptional. The director in my opinion wanted to give a message and he ends the movie with a message as well, but I am not sure if that is what he meant to give (remember the narration that I referred to in the beginning). I picked up a lot of messages - your insignificant action may have significant impact on other's life, speed kills, follow traffic rules, if you realize your mistake, then you can get rid of the punishment, when you are in an important mission, you can think of yourself as a hero, donate your organs, etc.
Finally, 'Chennayil Oru Naal', does not restrict itself to Chennai, in fact goes 170 km beyond it and that is what the story was about. Not a must watch movie, but one can definitely watch it once.
For the way the director handled so many characters, the characters were apt in their own sense, the performance by the individual actors, and for some moments of brilliance in the story line, on a scale of five, I would rate this movie a two dot five - 2.5/5.
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