MAHAAN (2022)
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| Critic No. 262 |
Director: Karthik Subbaraj
Written by: Karthik Subbaraj
Produced by: Seven Screen Studio
Casts: Vikram, Dhruv Vikram, Bobby Simha, Simran, Sanath, Vettai Muthukumar
Music: Santosh Narayanan
Language: Tamil
Genre: Action / Drama / Thriller
SYNOPSIS:
'Mahaan' follows the turbulent journey of a middle-aged simple man, Mahaan (Vikram) who later becomes a pride billionaire, followed by unexpected haywire challenges he starts to face soon after.
REVIEW:
Though Petta (2019) and Jagame Thandhiram (2020) was quite engaging, we cannot deny the fact that we are immensely missing the Karthik Subbaraj who gave us emotional knockout punches through Pizza (2012), Jigarthanda (2014) and Iraivi (2016). With an interesting premise and strong cast ensemble, does Karthik finally return back to his roots?
The film kicks off with a prologue, set in 1968, and involving three boys who are part of a card game having a falling out. In 1996, we see one of them, Gandhi Mahaan (Vikram) leading an unfulfilled life in which he is compelled to follow Gandhian values by his family, including wife Naachi (Simran), who are staunch followers of the Mahatma. Having just turned 40, he accidentally meets Sathyavaan (Simha), his childhood friend, who is now running a bar. He decides to party the night away, but the next day, his wife walks out of his home (along with their son, Dada) after having found out that he drank the previous night. After that rough patch, Mahaan decides to team up with Sathyavaan to help him develop his liquor business. A few years later, they end up meeting the third friend from the prologue — Gnanam (Muthukumar ), who is now a politician, who helps them expand their business. Just when things seem to be going very well, Gandhi's past catches up in the form of his son Dada (Dhruv Vikram).
With his usual Tarantino-ish style, right from the first frame, Karthik accelerates with a sleek visual style, bombastic texts and splendidly shot violent one take action set pieces. and sets up a strong premise with the 90s portions. Yes, the set up feels quite long before we get to the real plot with Karthik slowly building the friendship and the rise of Sathyavan and Mahaan. The funky Evanda Enakku Custody song kind of sets a hippy tone and though the story stands quite stagnant for the first hour or so, it keeps us invested. Shreyaas Krishnan’s cinematography and Santosh Narayanan’s music elevates the engaging factor largely even when the story fails to move. With a running time of 2 hours and 45 minutes, I felt that the film could have been better with a trimming of a good 30 minutes.
At midpoint, Dhruv Vikram enters the plot with a solid introduction scene and pulls us back to the edge of the seat. Karthik terrifically follows through in the second half with an intense cat and mouse sequence between them. I am not vouching that the film leads to a surprising route but the manner in which the events in the present mirror those that occurred in the prologue makes things interesting. The long set up of the friendship between Mahaan and Sathyavan finally gets a terrifically emotional pay off in the second half as well. To answer my question in the introductory paragraph, Mahaan might not be his best but it does brings back the solid writer in Karthik that we have missed so much in the recent years.
Vikram finally gets a role that he deserves after ‘I’ (2015) and grips it tightly, furiously working hard like a newcomer. In fact, Mahaan almost feels like Vikram’s new dimension, an important second inning. Dhruv continues where he left off from Adithya Varma (2019), playing another angry man here. Though his hardwork is clearly evident is painstaking stunts, I feel that he still couldn’t break out from his previous film’s character and almost feels quite one dimensional. The rushed character development doesn’t help as well. Bobby Simha, Sanath and Muthukumar rocks again in their roles. Bobby Simha shines brightly after Vikram and continues his effective run in Karthik Subbaraj’s film yet again. Simran is unfortunately wasted in a muddled role (yet again after 'Petta').
Besides Dada’s underdeveloped characterization, I loved the way Karthik consistently shapes up his film revolving around Mahatma Gandhi’s quote, “Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”. In a pressurizing, judgmental society we are living in, Mahaan kind of comes off timely to reiterate that we are all not that perfect and rethink before even judging anyone. It is a pity that such a technically strong film couldn’t hit the big screens but no doubt that this will end up as a landmark film in Vikram’s career that might be talked about in years to come.
VERDICT:
Karthik Subbaraj returns to form with a kick ass action flick that is supported by a predictable yet an emotional drama that perfectly feeds the mammoth acting talent of actor Vikram.
CELLULOID METER- 3.5/5:
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