Nov 25, 20213 min read

Enemy: The Price of Competition

Updated: Feb 21, 2023

Reviews by:

@mr.cinemaaa

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Project Details

Director: Anand Shankar
Story: Anand Shankar
Screenplay: Anand Shankar, S Rama Krishnan & Shan Karuppusamy
Dialogues: Shan Karuppusamy
Produced By: S Vinod Kumar
Production House: Mini Studios
Cinematography: R. D. Rajasekhar
Music/Songs: S. Thaman
Background Score: Sam C. S.
Edited By: Raymond Derrick Crasta
Production Design: T Ramalingam
Costumes: Pritha Agarwal
Action/Stunts: Ravi Verma
Choreography: Brindha & Sathish Krishnan
Run Time: 2 Hours & 40 Minutes
CBFC Rating: "U/A"

Direction & Story

The film is the story of two childhood friends and their escalating competitive nature. To what extent are they ready to go after turning enemies needs to be seen. The story by Anand Shankar is pretty good on paper & the idea of friends turning foes is definitely interesting which makes up for a perfect action thriller. The screenplay looks half-backed. Like there are good scenes, there are decent thrills and twists, 2 big heroes, proper setup of the conflict, but the proper binding factor between all these is majorly missing coz of the bad writing, poor logics, and unconvincing execution. Director Anand Shankar does a decent job in making the film look stylish but he has done a pretty mediocre job in presenting it in an engaging manner. The over the top hero characterizations require minimum logic but the logic here goes for a toss. Dialogues by Shan. K also never match the depth in the scenes.

Lead Performances

Vishal looks earnest and shines as Surya, an obedient son yet a risk-taker for the Telugu community who live in Singapore. This role is tailormade for him and he looks solid and does well in all the action episodes. Arya is also no less and brings an edge to the film with his negative shade. He has a meatier role, playing the anti-hero, but is let down by some poor writing. Mamta Mohandas is neat in her role while Mirnalini Ravi looks pretty but couldn't add anything new to the plot in terms of characterization and her performance. She literally disappears after the initial romantic track. Prakash Raj in a brief role is impactful at the start. Both the kids who played the younger version of the lead heroes are good in the flashback episodes. Thambi Ramaiah does full justice to his character as the innocent father of Vishal. Karunakaran, Malavika A, Nasser & others are fine in their limited roles.

Detailed Analysis

The initial childhood episode where Arya & Vishal get trained establishes their characters really well. A few scenes involving Photographic Memory are thrillingly done. Their traits and intelligence levels are registered properly and this is consistent throughout the film. It then falls into the regular commercial bracket. The hero intros & a few comedy scenes aren't engaging. The film gains momentum when the enemy arrives & the interval bang is decent with the 2 heroes meeting. The second half starts well with the confrontation but it gets dumber as it progresses. The cat & mouse game isn't packed with solid thrilling moments to hold your attention. You pretty much know how Arya's character is going to react & how Vishal's character will respond. Arya's characterization is poorly written. It could have been an iconic villain role but for such a high-profile assassin what he does & how he reacts is senseless.

Technical Team