Sathyamoorthy,JSS

The photo tells it all.That is pure anger that you see in his eyes.Rightful indignation!!
Sathya is the story of an angry young man,played excellently by Kamal Hassan.He is the quintessential youth of the 80s..unemployed,clerk/teacher type father, unmarried sis,lives in a chawl and is constantly attending interviews.He is frustrated with life, angry at how his efforts are going unrewarded and all the more weary as the day to day problems keep mounting.So one day when he sees a gunda carrying out a vasooli, he just snaps.And when sathya is angry there is no stopping him ,come storm or thunder.he then goes on to lash the gundas ,helped by his lackey friends.this makes him notorious in the colony.he takes it upon himself to clean up his locality, as gunda upon gunda is sent to thrash him up.He takes on all,until one day when his friend is murdered in daylight and the killers are let go for lack of witness.He becomes helpless and is soon approached by a politician asking him not to waste time tussling with small fry.he tells him to take the problem at the roots.The politician,Dandapani asks him to help him squash , the main bad guy of the city and a fellow politician.Sathya goes on a clean up drive sabotaging and thrashing the bad guy and finally gets hold of enough evidence to put him away.He hands it to dandapani ,triumphant that his efforts bore fruit.The next day he is astounded to see dandapani join hands with the bad guy.He was playing him all along.This makes dear old Sathya angry, very angry.You wont like him when he is angry!!
Its told in a gritty no holds barred way.the fight scenes are well shot and very realistic.That is the driving word here.realistic.You could say Sathya is a forerunner to the hardcore films RGV churns put nowadays and it still holds it own today though a tad too long.I strongly recommend it.

Fav scene:
1)when he realizes that his friends murdered will be let off cause no witness came forward, he decides to take matters in his own hands.As soon as they are let off, he proceeds to give the 3 of them the thrashing of their lifetimes.well shot .Theres a moment where he looks around for a weapon.,picks up a brick,decides against it as he spots two sticks.armed with those he strikes.Classic.
2)the fight scenes really stand out.The climax where an injured Sathya, going to take out the main bad guys, that scene is also quite good,

Trivia:You will find the same film in Hindi,only its titled Arjun and stars Sunny Deol,who does a surprisingly good job as well.As soon as Sathya started I guessed it was the same story.
Hmm.. it appears Arjun is the original.it came out in 1985 wile Sathya in 1988.It also happens to be the debut of director Suresh Krishna,who after exhibiting real talent went on to direct genuine pieces of turd like Baba,The prince and that Zayed khan flick,Rocky:the rebel

PS:JSS stands for Job Seekers Society,of which Sathya jokes ,is a member