Si3 (film)

Plot

The film starts with tremble in Andhra Pradesh parliament where long pending murder case of city commissioner Ramakrishna (Jayaprakash) is being discussed where home minister K. Sathyanarayana (Sarath Babu) proposes to bring DCP Durai Singam (Suriya) from Tamil Nadu police to solve the long pending case. Initially being attacked by Madhusudhana Reddy's (Sharat Saxena) men at railway station at arrival Durai Singam bashes them out and joins the Visakhapatnam police force under CBI pretending to be casual and not serious about the murder case Durai Singam secretly investigates the case from all aspects. Mean, while Durai Singam is being followed by Vidhya (Shruti Haasan) whom is a journalist from Andhra Pradesh tracking Durai Singam in disguise as student applied for IPS exams. Durai Singam initially says divorced his wife Kavya (Anushka Shetty), but secretly contacts her. Later, after suspicion of Subba Rao (Robo Shankar) it is told to be play to avoid Kavya from attacks from suspects of murder case. But, finally finding Reddy is behind the murder in series of investigation decides to wipe out goondas in Vispakhapatnam along with arresting Police officers involved in murder of commissioner. After, tracking a suspect he come across to know illegal dumping of Bio-waste and E-Waste from Australia by Vittal Prasad (Thakur Anoop Singh) a wealthy businessman from Australia and son of central minister Ram Prasad (Suman) who works as master mind behind dumping of wastes from Australia for his business benefits in Vishakapatnam by help of Reddy and his staff Rajeev Krishna (Kamalesh). When the commissioner tried to expose this to media he was brutally killed by Reddy and his subordinates. This is proved by witness from commissioner's driver Mallaya (Jeeva Ravi) and school teacher (Joe Malloori) who lost his granddaughter in toxic smoke caused by burning wates from Australia in nearby dumpyard. When Durai Singam attempts to arrest Reddy and Vittal Prasad with help the witness and evidence collected. Reddy's men kills the school teacher and warns Durai Singam that he will destroy his whole family from Australia if he further investigates the case. Durai Singam travels to Australia like a personal trip with his wife, but he actually goes to get all the evidences of Vittal's Business. After returning from Australia he tackles every rowdies and henchmen of Reddy and kills him. Angry Vittal arives Visakhapatnam and warns Durai Singam. As expected arrival of Vittal to Visakhapattinam Durai Singam exposes the containers that contained the waste to the press and warns Vittal to surrender. Vittal tries to kill Vidhya who tried to spy on him and Durai Singam by hiring a contract killer from Mumbai by making a bomb blast. Durai Singam manages to save Vidhya as well as himself and exposes Vittal's real face to the world and provide every evidence he collected from his Australian Head Office and arrest him while he tried to escape from Hyderabad Airport in Telengana State. Vittal tries to escape from Policemen, but Durai Singam stops him and fights with him in Talakona Forest and kills him there. Durai Singam successfully concludes and submits the case file to the home minister and returns back to Tamil Nadu. Finally Vidhya gets engaged with another person happily and Home Minister Ramanathan (Vijayakumar) calls Durai Singam once again.

Production

Following the commercial success of Singam 2, Hari was keen to collaborate with Suriya for another action film with a fresh script away from the Singam franchise, and agreed terms in principle with the actor in October 2014. Hari revealed that as a result of pressure from those around him, he later developed the one-line story from the film into a script for a third part of Singam. While the first film was primarily shot within Tamil Nadu and the second featured a few scenes in South Africa, Hari stated that the third part would be more "international" and would be set in three countries as the protagonist tackles a global issue.

While most of the cast was retained from the earlier films, Shruti Haasan was added to the team in July 2015 to portray another leading female role, while Anirudh Ravichander was signed as the music composer replacing Devi Sri Prasad. Anirudh later opted out of the project citing scheduling issues and Harris Jayaraj was brought in to compose the film's music. Vivek, who portrayed the police officer Erimalai in the first two films, declined to reprise his role in this film as he felt he "did not have a meaty role in it". New actors to the series including Radhika, Soori, Robo Shankar, Krish and Nithin Sathya were added to the cast, while Thakur Anoop Singh was signed on to portray the lead antagonist. In preparation for his role, Suriya bulked up his physique by spending more hours in the gym and by adopting a strict oil-free diet.

The start of the film's shoot, initially scheduled for December 2015, was delayed as a result of the 2015 South Indian floods. Production began in Visakhapatnam during January 2015 with scenes featuring Shruti Haasan as a journalist being shot. Following a series of action sequences shot in the city, the team moved to film song sequences in Romania with Anushka joining the team. After a production break, the team restarted the shoot in Visakhapatnam, before moving to the Talakona Forest region and then on the AVM Studios in Chennai during mid-2016. The team moved to Malaysia to finish filming the climax in October 2016, before a further song was shot in Georgia with Suriya and Shruti Haasan. In January 2017, the film was re-titled from S3 to Si3 (spelt சி3 in Tamil) to exploit the Tamil Nadu Government's rule of entertainment tax exemption for films titled in Tamil.

Release

The film went through several changes of release date, before being released on 9 February 2017. The film was completed in mid-2016 and the team completed post-production work aiming to have a theatrical release in October to coincide either with the Ayudha Puja or Diwali season, but the release was postponed to avoid a box office clash with Suriya's brother, Karthi's film, Kaashmora. The film was then scheduled to release on 16 December and then even later on 23 December to make most of the Christmas holiday season, but was delayed after the team chose to allow the public of Tamil Nadu more time to recuperate from the aftermath of Cyclone Vardah, the death of Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha and the ongoing demonetisation problems. Prior to the film's revised release date of 26 January, PETA India had remarked that Suriya was trying to garner publicity for S3 by speaking out against the organisation at the 2017 pro-Jallikattu protests. Suriya subsequently filed a legal notice against PETA for the defamatory allegations. The film was pushed back even further following riots in Chennai at the end of the protest, with the producers finalising a worldwide theatrical release date of 9 February.

Box Office

The film collected ₹201.5 million (US$3.0 million) in domestic box office on its opening day and ₹770 million (US$11 million) in 5 days of release. The film collected ₹1 billion (US$15 million) worldwide in 6 days. The film managed to collect MYR 3,663,660 after two week screenings. On the other hand, the film only managed to collect ₹20.8 million (US$310,000) in United States.

Critical reception

Times of India stated that the delayed release " did not seem to deter Duraisingam from roaring loud, making swift actions, bashing up the baddies uncompromisingly and winning applause from his colleagues as well as the audience", while also lauding Suriya and Hari's contribution to the film. The critic wrote "Suriya, who carries the entire film on his shoulders, is in full form — Duraisingam looks as intense, brave and energetic as he appeared more than six years ago", and "director Hari’s consistency in handling cop stories convincingly and entertainingly needs to be commended as he has been proving his expertise repeatedly". The New Indian Express also gave the film a positive review, stating "In Si3, Suriya proves with the third film of the franchise that no one can play Durai Singam better than him", while analysing that "Hari maintains a sense of urgency in his films from the beginning to end, but, as a commercial film director, his storytelling methods also suffer from following a set of rules, which include frequent yawn-inducing songs", though added that "he makes up for that formulaic approach with fast-paced narration in the scenes that follows". Behindwoods.com rated the film 2.75 out of 5 and stated that "Durai Singam strikes again! Suriya and Hari don't disappoint you in this Singam franchise". Filmibeat.com rated it 3 out of 5 and stated "Singam 3 is sure to entertain the fans of Singam franchise. With full-form, Singam 3 packs the same punch as it's prequels". In contrast, the critic from The Hindu stated that the film was "loud, fast, and without a single memorable moment". Likewise, Sify.com called the film "a cocktail of harebrained predictable plot, exhausting action scenes and slapstick comedy", while concluding it was "loud and exhausting".

Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack is scored by Harris Jayaraj, who replaced Devi Sri Prasad as the composer of the film series. Taking a break after various schedules of shooting, director Hari and Harris Jayaraj completed the song composing in Bangkok, Thailand. The audio rights of the film was acquired by Eros Music and the complete album was released on 27 November 2016. Reviewing the album, Srivatsan of India Today stated "S3 might not be Harris' best work, but definitely not bad either. Having said that, it's a pucca (English: really) commercial album from the composer. Be it the songs or the theme music, the album has enough scope to pander to the B and C centers".