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Leo Movie Review: Call This Thalapathy Vijay Starrer ‘Deo’ & It Would Still Stink Because Of Its Stale Story!

Name: Leo
Item: Leo
Rating: 2.5
Author: Umesh Punwani

Lokesh Kanagaraj is coming out of delivering the best film of his career in Vikram and jumps on to directing the worst piece of cinema he has ever made!

Umesh Punwani

- October 19, 2023 | 9:29 AM IST

Leo Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Thalapathy Vijay, Trisha, Arjun, Sanjay Dutt, Sandy Master, Gautham Vasudev Menon, George Maryan

Director: Lokesh Kanagaraj

What’s Good: Vijay & Anirudh save Lokesh Kanagraj’s ship from sinking all the way in

What’s Bad: Lacks emotional depth showcasing a done-to-death concept

Loo Break: It’s almost 3 hours and not a good film; you’ll need a few!

Watch or Not?: Only and only if you’re a Vijay fan!

Language: Tamil

Available On: Theatrical Release

Runtime: 2 Hours 44 Minutes

User Rating:

It opens following the textbook definition of “How to make your hero’s entry more heroic?” gives him a problem to solve that no one else was able to do. We meet Parthiban (Vijay), who’s an animal rescuer-cum-cafe owner – 2 extreme-end professions you would’ve never thought could be labored by one person.

So, because he’s an animal rescuer, he’ll, of course, get a wild animal to tame so that the audience should know the hero is here and he’ll be solving all the problems from now. Later, we get to know some people are targeting him, saying he’s not Parthiban but Leo Das, a Mafia boss who everyone is scared of. But what’s Parthiban’s reality? Is he an animal rescuer-cum-cafe owner or mafia-boss-cum-cafe owner?

Leo Movie Review: Script Analysis

Lokesh Kanagaraj teams up with Master & Vikram’s writer, Rathna Kumar, adding Jil Jung Juk’s Deeraj Vaidy, which doesn’t help in any way. I had a doubt when Loki kept saying how he had just rehashed the done-to-death concept but added a proper theatrical experience to it. I don’t know why I would expect something else when he has said this multiple times & that’s what he delivers. The story is so stale that even if the film is retitled as ‘Deo,’ it would still stink.

But, there are elevation moments, as promised, enriching the theatre experience for those particular scenes. The problem is, what apart from that? Because these high moments are too little even to count, and the rest of the time, you’re like, “Vikram chala do wapas!” (Play me Vikram again!). Manoj Paramahamsa smartly tried to hide the pretty ordinary VFX through his camera tricks & Philomin Raj through his editing skills. Still, whenever there are high-quantity VFX scenes, you’ll be able to feel its substandard quality in some sequences.

Even the hollow screenplay makes you lose the connection with the characters way sooner than you’d expect it to end. A prime example of a sub-par screenplay is Vijay telling the story of a serial killer, corpses on the ground to his school-going daughter, and closing her ears only when he wants to say “bleeding”. I mean, what parameter is this?

Leo Movie Review: Star Performance

Thalapathy Vijay has been getting very comfortable in doing such roles and, hence, getting pretty monotonous at what he does. I’ll never deny the amazing star power he has, but even we thought the same for Salman Khan, and we all saw what happened when he got repetitive.

Trisha adds zero value to the story or Parthiban’s life. She fights over him getting their ‘anniversary’ shirt torn, completely ignoring that he has saved so many lives while defeating a wild Hynea. Arjun is royally wasted, and so is Sanjay Dutt; I wish we could’ve seen more of both. Sandy Master creates the desired with his lunatic serial killer. He should’ve stayed the main villain till the end.

Leo Movie Review: Direction, Music

Lokesh Kanagraj is coming out of delivering the best film of his career in Vikram and jumps on to directing the worst piece of cinema he has ever made. It does ample fan service and is written keeping in mind to only and only serve fans.

Anirudh Ravichander saves the boat! He’s the one who makes pretty average scenes a delight for years. Jumping into proper situational songs like ‘I’m Scared,’ it’s Anirudh’s BGM, because of which Vijay’s swag comes across as what it is.

Leo Movie Review: The Last Word

All said and done, this is the Thor: Love And Thunder of LCU. It had everything steering its way, but Lokesh took everything too casually to let everything slip.

Two and a half stars!