Scene sets itself up instantly with a scene at a graveyard. On a rainy night, men are trying to get rid of a body, only to run into a young murderer.

He is Eeswaran (a terrific Naslen) who, while tied to a cross, bargains his release by promising them more kills in the near future.“At least once in life somebody wants to kill someone. I will do it for you,” he declares.

Eeswaran, audiences are told, has no motivation other than to kill for fun.With a foe so quirky, it is imperative then that the man (police officer) who will bring him down have his own set of idiosyncrasies. Trust Malayalam film director Jithu Madhavan to deliver in his Tamil film debut.In Inba aka Inbaraj (Suriya), he creates a character whose swagger lies in his devil-may-care demeanour to authority and decorum.

There’s, of course, a chink in his armour, which only gets disclosed midway through the film. But even before the revelation is dropped, Inba has made an impact courtesy his braggadocio.

He reports to work in shorts; appears unkempt; is irritable and difficult but commands respect for his ability to crack cases; and is a loner who wants to call it quits but isn’t allowed to. In the first half, Madhavan sets up Inba’s workplace as the key territory to generate humour.

And no one is spared—from Inba’s boss (Lal) to his junior colleagues. There’s slapstick humour as much as dialogues that depict them as helpless rather than authoritarian and confident figures.

In one scene, two officers are peed on by a killer in a jail; in another, a tea stall owner doubts if two officers are genuinely cops and not fraudsters. It lends itself to exaggerated situations where the humour does go OTT (over the top) as officers seem like buffoons.Scene’s appeal lies in how its world is full of misfits who try to disguise their weaknesses but gradually come to accept them and even be proud of it.

What Madhavan and dialogue writer Dravid Selvam do particularly well is skillfully negotiate the tricky task of drawing laughs by poking on someone’s limitation.That it never comes across as derisive or exploitative or even pushes the line of decency is credit to them. There are moments here when the humour ventures into absurdist territory, coming at moments least expected.

It helps that in Suriya, Nazriya Nazim and other cast, they have an ensemble who can both take the dig sportingly or quickly dismiss it. It’s best evident in a fight sequence when Maya (Nazriya) takes centre stage while Inba is seen fumbling about.Where Scene falters is when it forgets that it takes two to tango.

By opting to focus on showcasing Inba’s vulnerability and setting up the arc between him and aide Maya, the story pulls away from the nemesis and slackens considerably. It’s not that the rapport (and subsequent attraction) between Inba and Maya or how he overcomes the adversity isn’t necessary.

But it takes away from what the film had set out to do: build a rivalry between two magnetic and passionate characters. One relishes a high body-count, another has to prove to himself he still has the knack despite the odds so stacked against him.Suriya is in cruise-control mode here, relishing the self-referential funny bits celebrating his persona that are dropped into the story.

Like when Maya asks Inba to flash the trademark Suriya smile or when co-producer Jyotika makes a cameo to cheers. Yes, it’s a Suriya show, but Naslen is a scene-stealer in the limited screen-time he is afforded.

He uses his boyish smile to disguise the character’s menace and highlights his wit with lines that have audiences in splits. He shows why he is a star in the making.Subscribe to India Today Magazine- Ends