To say it was a letdown would be letting down this post. I wanted to like this film. I did.
Yet when you can catch mistakes and only mistakes when you are not even looking for them, it’s easy to tell Mani thatha to stop cooking.
A defendable first half. A delusional second that rips out the first’s defence.
It did not start that way, though
The best part of the film was the first 15 or so minutes. In a flashback sequence set in monochrome, Mani Ratnam establishes our characters and their motives by just catching their eyes. The actors have pulled it off well. It was not done on an epic scale, but it did set up a certain intrigue despite me having read a bunch of shitty reviews online already. And the monochrome might have been a little pretentious, but I have subjectively grown to appreciate them lately, so that worked for me.
A tale of two
The only thing that carries the film (if at all there is any to) is the two lead characters. But to me personally, it felt like they were both having their separate films at the same time, even when they shared the screen. Somehow, it did not feel cohesive. Or maybe it was too cohesive, and I could not get the usual screen presence of either. Neither dominated any frame. But you can still appreciate the performances themselves that they’ve put together.
And the rest of the unit, too. I just wish the others weren’t there, just to make up numbers, but rather had actual motivations to be.
Banger album
Or lack thereof. ARR did some of his best work, which is what I was hoping to say. I’d been listening to the songs since they were out, and it seemed to be a decent mix. But none of them made it to the final cut. And those that did were fragmented and thrown together.
I am not sure why they tried going for Opera-esque tunes for the score. It felt like a Frankensteined mess. Nothing sat well with the visuals. I had convinced myself that O Maara is a vibe because I knew it was for STR. But the song was just in the way of what could have otherwise been a glorious character entry.
Unfortunately, it was mid. At best.
I’m confused. Is this an action film?
It’s getting worse. Because, now I have to compare this film’s cinematography with a shitshow called Liger. I do not want to go into detail. Please do not make an action film if you are going to have 50-odd cuts when a character throws a single punch, and do it at a sped-up framerate as well.
Inconsistent Narrative
Spoilers ahead. But it doesn’t matter tbh!
KH learns Martial Arts from the monks of Nepal and has a kinda mid-fight sequence with Joju George where he utterly dominates. 20 mins of run time later, he finds it difficult to throw those afore-mentioned punches on a severely injured STR. C’mon Mani. You know better.
I wish it were just the fights. But man, the inconsistency between crying for your amnesiac wife and flirting with your mistress while stalking out your rival. I started having vertigo at this moment and never recovered.
Are we cursed again?
For a time in between, Tamil Cinema suffered a little something called the second half curse.
Lately, I’ve been feeling we’re facing a climax curse. Both for this film and Retro, I felt that the climax itself was well done. But the rest of the film was such a letdown that they did not earn the climax.
In saying that, it felt like a moment in Retro.
It was yet another throw-away here. Almost like Mani thatha had remembered his Chekov’s gun notes from film-making 101 and decided to wrap things up.
But there are more scenes/snaps as the credits roll. I ran out by then. If you do catch it, please don’t let me know.
Varen Ma for Vivegam.
Sethu vechu vandhu vangikren for Thug Life.
