Vikram: Baby's Night Out!

 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 பெற்ற தாய் தனை மகன் மறந்தாலும் #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 735^th 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!🤣