A complete tonal mess, Retro can't decide if it wants to be a brutal action film or a wacky lighthearted comedy. It's a strange and idiotic story about a gloomy thug who has to learn how to laugh. Song-and-dance numbers are awkwardly thrown into the mix.

Retro, on the whole, is a good effort by director Karthik Subbaraj but the choppy screenplay, with too many tracks, prevents it from being a great one.

The 168-minute Retro spends too much time on mindless action sequences and suffers from a lack of powerful supporting characters who typically feature in Subbaraj’s films.

This is the Suriya we have been wishing to see on screen for a long time. And if not for that underwhelming middle stretch, Retro proves to be the kind of experiment more Tamil filmmakers need to take on.