Visaaranai movie review: Where violence begets violence

Cast: Dinesh, Samuthirakani, Kishore, Murugadass

Director: Vetri Maaran

Vetri Maaran, the national award winning filmmaker known for his intense films is back after a hiatus with an arresting subject, a story inspired from a novel ‘Lock Up’, a true life horrific experiences written by a Kovai based auto driver Chandra Kumar.  Premiered at last year’s Venice Film Festival, Visaaranai (Interrogation) is a power-packed work, which is gloomy, disturbing where violence begets violence.

The movie about police high-handedness on four guys from Tamil Nadu including Pandi (Dinesh, Aadukalam Murugadoss among others) who are daily-wage earning laborers at Guntur in Andhra Pradesh.

They haven’t learnt Telugu and do not have a shelter of their own. They together sleep in a park nearby. On a fateful wee hour, they are picked up by local police and taken to the station and brutally beaten black and blue for a crime, which they did not commit.

The cops resort to several degrees of torture as they are under pressure to close a robbery case file and the foursome is made to admit the crime so that they can produce them in the court the next day.

Meanwhile, a special police force from Tamil Nadu, led by Murugavel (Samuthirakani), arrives at the Andhra court to arrest a high profile auditor (Kishore). Incidentally, he comes to the rescue of the four innocent boys. He also offers them a free ride to Chennai. On the way, one of them gets down and the rest three reaches the destination.

Murugavel asks a small favor to clean up the police station since the next day happens to be a festival and the three oblige. Just when you think ‘all is well’ with the boys, the visaaranai once again begins at the TN police station. Stuck at wrong place at wrong time, they get trapped in a web of conspiracy woven by the corrupt, scheming policemen and powerful politicians.

Attakatthi Dinesh and Murugadass have given a realistic portrayal and Samuthirakani simply excels especially in the climax scenes when he is caught between his duty and guilt. Ajay Ghosh as the Telugu inspector frightens with his menacing act. Kishore steals the show in a small yet powerful role.

Anandhi appears in a blink- n- miss role. GV Prakash’s BGM, Rama Lingam’s cinematography and late editor Kishore’s crisp editing literally elevate the script to a new level. Vetri Maaran has made an emotional saga, which depicts the harsh realities of life with a no-holds barred stark approach, which may not go well with the feeble hearted, but will be something to ponder over our corrupt and greedy system in which we are living.

And the boy who gets down early from Samuthirakani’s jeep in the film is the only survivor in the whole drama who we are shown is ‘Chandra Kumar’ who wrote the novel.