STORY:
Varun (Vijay Deverakonda), son of Tamil Nadu chief minister Vinothan (Nasser) leads a carefree life in London. Aspiring to become a video game developer, he enjoys life to the core in the company of his friends.
On the night of his birthday, he is chased by the police who catch him and inform that he has been called by his father for an emergency meeting.
Since Vinothan is convicted by the court and is set to go to jail, he wants to make Varun as the chief minister and to operate things from behind.
Varun is initially very hestitant to accept the top job as he has zero knowledge in politics. He doesn’t even know the name of the governor and his cabinet colleagues.
But soon after becoming the CM, he understands the nuances of politics and also wants to do good to the people. He is guided in his endeavour by Mahendran (Sathyaraj), who is a journalist.
Vinothan is irked by the acts of Varun and wants to bring him down from the seat of the chief minister. The rest is all about the game between the father and the son.
ANALYSIS:
From the chief minister’s conviction to Chennai like floods to CM’s hospitalisation to MLAs in resort, NOTA takes a dig at all recent political developments of Tamil Nadu and this keeps the viewers engaged.
While scoring in these points, director Anand Shankar of Arima Nambi and Iru Mugan fame has failed to establish connect between the lead characters, eventually making the audience not to root for them.
Performance wise, Vijay Deverakonda, who has made his straight Tamil debut with this flick, has done a commendable job and his efforts to get Tamil accent right are laudable.
Nasser has come up with brilliant performance, while Sathyaraj reminds us of Cho Ramaswamy (today, 5 October, is his birthday incidentally). Mehreen has got nothing much to do in this hero-oriented script.
Santhana Krishnan provides authentic colour tone to the visuals, while Sam CS scores big time in background music. With a strong team in the cast and the crew, Anand Shankar has tried to repeat his Arima Nambi magic.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Nota: Political pot
Director: Anand Shankar
Producer: K. E. Gnanavel Raja
Music Director: Sam C. S.
Cast: Vijay Devarakonda Mehreen Pirzada Yashika Aannand Nassar
