Though Lingaa was released with a huge burden of expectations, the movie received average ratings from the critics and the audience. While half of the audience was impressed with the movie, the other half was slightly critical about the movie and found faults with the movie. Various segments, especially,the climax of the movie were attacked for the obvious lack of logic and for pushing our power of reasoning to its limit.
However, the director of the movie Ravikumar owned up to the mistake and accepted the responsibility for the bloopers in the movie. He said that the actual story ends with the robber deciding not to steal from the temple but the crew wanted to provide the Rajni fans with something special, which would leave them happy. He also revealed that the climax was motivated by the Jackie Chan movie The Armour of the God.
Ravikumar also said that a good portion of the audience, especially children, liked the climax. Another huge mistake of the movie was the inclusion of the book The Hero with Thousand Faces which is written by the renowned writer Joseph Campbell. In the movie, it seems that the book is read in the year 1939.This is a serious flaw since the book was released in 1949. Ravikumar commented that that he came to know about this only later and that it was too late to rectify the mistake. He explained that he asked his crew to search for a book, which starts with the name Hero. Finally, they came up with the book as they felt that the book is perfect for the context. However, they did not realize that the book is not from the same period and they became aware of that only after everything was finished. Therefore, they could not do anything about that.
Ravikumar remarked that there is a natural tendency in everyone including himself to point out the flaws of the movie rather than its positive points. He said that he also takes notes of the mistakes in the movies just like others, but opts not to open it to the public. He also said that if he finds faults he holds a private conservation with those responsible for the mistakes. He also gave his word that he will make sure that his future films are free of such mistakes.
