Chennai: A group of young women waver between picking up their bags from the theatre’s baggage counter and watching the film again before the excitement mellows. This is a ‘scene’ the reviewer witnessed on Deepavali day, after an early-morning screening of Suriya’s Scene — a release that “feels like a film version of watching a 10,000-wala firecracker burst with timed perfection.”
Directed by Aavesham-maker Jithu Madhavan, Scene is an engaging dark comedy with so much going for it that choosing its most satisfying highlight is difficult. Let’s start with Suriya, for whom this will undoubtedly be a hat-trick of hits in 2026.
Rewriting ‘Mass’
With a career spanning almost 30 years, Suriya has “scene” it all (all puns in the review are intentional). His offbeat Retro ended with mixed results, but it seems to have hardly stopped the experimentalist in him — with Scene, he finds in Jithu Madhavan a filmmaker who understands “mass” on a refreshingly cerebral level.
If Nelson recalibrated Rajinikanth for modern audiences in Jailer 2, Jithu finds a satisfying unison between Suriya’s abilities as a superstar and a performer who vanishes into the story.
There’s a moment when Suriya, playing police officer Inbaraj, breaks the fourth wall and asks, “Who is that Suriya? Is he some big shot?” On paper, that might read as routine meta-ness, but this is where Jithu changes the scene. Suriya, the star, becomes the butt of the joke, fodder for Inbaraj, the protagonist. Even his famous “Ondra ton weight” punchline from Singam (2010) comes with a comical twist.
The Setup
Annoyed that his boss Stephen (Lal) refuses to accept his resignation, Inbaraj goes about his life as an overachiever bored with success. He has cracked umpteen high-profile cases without breaking much sweat, including the sensational case of the notorious Perfume Killer.
Inba smokes like a chimney, wears the same home clothes to the office, and behaves like a cynical, unsociable know-it-all. “He has gotten so lazy that he doesn’t even enter the crime scene, instead asking his subordinates to do the dirty work,” one subordinate complains. Jithu floods these sequences with his trademark eccentricities, then pulls the rug out with a reveal about a specific condition Inba suffers from.
The Villain
By the time Inba’s fascinating world unfolds, writer Jithu has piqued interest with Eeswaran (Naslen), a stone-cold serial killer who has temporarily adopted the Perfume Killer’s modus operandi for the sake of his “business.” Eeswaran approaches killing with procedural indifference. One daunting dialogue — about how everyone would have wished to kill someone at one point — has him infect his evil and almost incriminate the viewer.
If Inba is methodical and prepared, Eeswaran is vigilant and preemptive. Scenes flow so seamlessly that even when a lot happens, you hardly realise the passage of time. Crisp shot division and effective editing (Ajmal Sabu), along with cinematographer Vineeth Augustian’s stylishly conceived shots and sparing slow-motions, ensure the 149-minute film moves like butter.
The Comedy and the Misfits
Jithu’s trademark dark humour, seen in Romancham and Aavesham, is once again the film’s biggest highlight. After the first half of Jailer 2, Scene is easily one of the most hilarious films, with a high joke-to-second ratio. This “meme godown” is set to take over social media.
The film shifts gear with the arrival of Iridayaraj (Anandraj, in a surprising turn), Inba’s father, and Selvi, his mother. In Romancham and Aavesham, Jithu explored found family; here it hilariously extends to blood relatives who come across like incompatible colleagues forced to work together. Along with Maya (Nazriya Nazim), these four become a ragtag team hunting Eeswaran — a woman with a neuropsychological issue, a man with a specific sensory condition, a serial profiler with a drinking problem, and a former forensic surgeon with short-term memory loss.
The Emotional Core
The film’s emotional core lies in the relationship between Inba and Maya — a sensitive idea handled with care. Maya becomes the third eye through which Inba perceives the world, but also the missing piece of a puzzle he didn’t know he needed. Props to Jithu for weaving this into the narrative and letting Maya become the Jarvis to Inba’s Iron Man (interestingly, also making a case for how AI could be used for good).
The thematic strength lies in how Jithu writes this core with dignity for the condition his protagonist suffers from. It is good writing that highlights how someone so self-confident can have their own demons in the darkness. Crucially, Jithu manages to wring humour out of Inba without poking fun at his condition.
The Shortcomings
Nazriya delivers a measured performance as Maya. In a scene celebrating girl power, Suriya takes the joke upon himself and elevates Maya as a skilled kung-fu fighter. However, why this fighter wasn’t used in a later second-half scene defies scene-level logic. That scene tries to elevate Eeswaran as a far more dangerous menace, but the screenplay strangely misses justifying those capabilities. While we see the ruins of Eeswaran’s “business,” we don’t really see him commit crime.
The Verdict
Despite these shortcomings, Scene is a scene-sational entertainer, and Jithu Madhavan proves that star vehicles can have both mass and class.
At the end of the day, it is Suriya’s time under the sun. In the film, Maya teaches Inba a positive affirmation: “I am the best. I can do anything. And today is my day.” Whether Suriya is the best is up to the audience, but today is certainly his day. Truly a ‘scene’ to behold.
Scene is currently running in theatres.
