It is the age-old
story.
Drugs are a
menace. So, one can do anything to gain control of it. Good Side (GS) and Bad
Side (BS) fight over it. They do everything. Target families. Don’t let cousins
use toilets in peace. Don’t let infants sleep in peace. Don’t let wives pack
in peace. All hell breaks loose. Kill at will. ‘Yada yada hi dharmascha…’. ‘Satyameva
Jayate’. ‘Vande <insert your country’s name here>’. Read the first
sentence. Subham.
Of course,
it is a medical movie. 😉
Kamal keeps
checking his pulse in the movie with that e-watch of his (no, it isn’t an
i-watch!). Even VJS sports a tattoo of Caduceus – symbol of doctors & spouts IUPAC names and chemical formulae (C12H21…) of drugs to his illiterate
family (power of education, anyone?); LK and his team have worked hard to raise
your BP to dangerous levels. Drugs are a cancer to the society. Someone does a CPR – although after about ten minutes since they’d flatlined. People talk about bone replacement surgeries. Pathala song lyrics has references to COVID. So, in that spirit…
🔫#NormoTensionMessage: (Kamal’s movies
can’t NOT have a message) It is not about drugs. It is about ‘catching them
young’. Children learn by induction. If you smoke, they start with pens as
mock-ciggies and graduate soon to the real deal. I am sure you are carrying
some habits that you learnt from your parents when you were a toddler. If Amudha
from Kaithi is all innocence, (remember Karthi’s பெà®±்à®± தாய் தனை
மகன் மறந்தாலுà®®் #revisit),
the infant plays with the guns here - with his namesake. The fact that the kid is
afraid of sudden noises and sounds & had to wear ear muffles is symbolic of
how we as parents want to bring up our children in the Gandhian way
(See/Hear/Speak No Evil) – there is even a juicy reference about how drugs will
convert us all back to monkeys! Of course, the message is not Gandhi’s 3
Monkeys here…
🔫#RacyAction: There are some
fantastic set action pieces in the movie which really raises the pulse of the
audience – but not Kamal’s, (that e-watch again!) It
is one of my pet peeves that all shield carriers are safe from all bullets,
even though their legs are exposed. (Remember that Beast scene?) Thankfully after
almost three hours, BS realized that one can shoot some one’s legs as the 3.5 feet shield can cover only that much. 😉
🔫#PalpitatingMusic: Anirudh is
definitely on a roll. The BGM (songs don’t get any screen space; thanks.) just
rolls on and on with almost no respite and respect towards our tympanums. The
EDM version of ‘Porkanda Singam’ in the 735th action sequence of the
movie was fun.
🔫#TachycardiaInterval: I hate
watching movies as two parts. And Singapore has helped alleviate that by having
no intermissions in movies. In India, it is always a Tale of Two Halves. So,
the audience will have to hit the urinals and popcorn vendors, not necessarily in the same
order, on a high. Vikram achieved that fantastically. The movie, which was
slowly building Kamal’s character until then, suddenly shifts gears and runs at
Mach2. It was almost as if LK suddenly realized that Kamal must be brought to the
stage-front-and-centre. So, those ten minutes do raise the pulse like crazy. I
would have preferred the editing to be a bit crispier there.
🔫#ArrythmicActing: Except for Fahadh
Faasil, all others could have done better. Sacrilege! How about Kamal? Well,
apart from the occasional tear and an unwanted ‘Maiyam-induced’ sermon on
drugs, he wasn’t at his best in my opinion. VJS was reprising Bhavani from Master
including punching people to glory and munching drugs like ‘Irumugan’ Vikram (the real, other one 🙃) to
gain instant energy. Suriya? Well, apart from increasing the sales of fake
Rolex watches & fake Marshall speakers, not much to write home there. (But
the dude looks menacing though!) One other scene which had a potential to be a
powerful one was when FaFa meets Naren (‘One man’s revolution is…’) but it fell flat.
Both of them were perhaps still in a Mallu movie scenario. The scene required a bit
more oomph and explosion and the timing was off. LK had a ready reference in
Kuruthi Punal…
🔫#RestlessGunSyndrome: Of course,
guns, Guns, GUNS! Even a cannon! And it is the old men who wield the armoury!
It is indeed a country for old men! 😊
🔫#DeepVeinWriting: In one of the
interviews LK had said that he spent more than two months after the initial
one-liner to prepare the bound script (with all his 16 assistants). It shows. Lot
of care has been taken to make the movie cogent, intelligent, and with never-a-slack
moment. You almost always feel that every scene/frame has some meaning or
other. So…
🔫#FinalDiagnosis:
Kamal’s, strike that, Lokesh Kanakaraj’s Vikram is not a fanboy ‘sambhavam’ about
his love for Kamal. He has weaved his love and affection through the characters
and dialogues than making it a crass ‘Petta’. One small thing: Don’t do the
sequel immediately. You will be labelled as a ‘one-trick-pony’.
Vikram is worth
a watch in the theatre (no, not OTT!). If you like some intelligent writing and
enjoy the many ‘wow’ moments & some hidden nuggets, you can do it twice
also. I will.
#sriGINThoughts
#reviews #Vikram
PS:
Oh, don’t look for the much-touted anti-ageing technology, unless it was the
kid himself who is a anti-aged Kamal! LOL!🤣
