Rajini, Big B pack a punch in Gnanavel’s Vettaiyan

The South audience is generally geared up to watch their superstars deliver hyperboles at the time of Dasara when the multi-headed demon of exaggerated violence and drama in the name of entertainment is more celebrated than destroyed. By such standards, this is a very mild version. The choice of Rajini is a task half-achieved at the box office. The rest is to get a screenplay (however inept and artistically dishonest) stitched together, prompting the R factor. Task accomplished. So is it this time with a man who braved to tell us ‘Jai Bhim’.

‘A Wednesday’ celebrated citizen anarchy. ‘Zanjeer’ set the trend when police officers used violence as a legitimate language to deal with crime. Surely since the 1970s — and thus for half a century — mainstream cinema has approved with audacity the theme that the law is not accountable. “Instant justice” screams are the voiced graffiti of a social order that is increasingly cynical of the justice delivery system. Be it HYDRAA or police excess, there is the tacit approval of the polity. Remember the approval of the Disha encounter. Remember the thirst for blood post the Nirbhaya incident.

The film deals with a brave school teacher Saranya (Dushara Vijayan) who exposes the drug mafia, falls a victim to rape and murder. SP Athiyan (Rajnikanth) is a reputed “encounter specialist” celebrated a la ‘Ab Tak 56’ who is emotionally connected with the victim who thus decides to mete out immediate street justice to suspect Guna (Sabumon Abdusamad). Human Rights lawyer Satyadev (Amitabh) conducts a detailed inquiry which not only points to the SP Athiyan but also to the team of inspector Harish Kumar (Kishore Kumar) and ASP Roopa (Ritika Singh). However, as it becomes clear that Guna was wronged and the culprit is someone else, SP Athiyan promises to unearth the larger plot and book the culprit. Nothing more for now.

As the human rights activist Satyadev draws up the hackneyed conundrum between the two cliches: Justice delayed is justice denied and justice hurried is justice buried. The challenge is sensitive and pregnant with possibilities. The delivery is predictable, over-the-top, and socially viewed: still born.

From the moment SP Athiyan is introduced as the dancing wonder alongside Anirudh Ravichander, you realise you have a ticket to 164 minutes of mainstream masala — and a stale one at that. The death scene and the obsequies with cinematic time and space are clearly indicative of a demand-assumed supply of narration. What is largely worrisome is not just the consistent ideological inoculation of the theory that the police are justified in using their service revolver to hand out “instance justice”. The film for all its preaching on human rights makes no bones on which side its sympathy is. The mandate of the collective in support of the brutal power of the police is worrisome, more so in the context of its consistent attractive star packaging. Stars like Rajnikanth who hold a larger than life space in our polity must necessarily revisit the ease with which they are willing to eulogise such anarchy and endorse its consequences.

Frankly one only accepts this much from a Rajini film. Certainly nothing very strong thematically. Realism is but the first victim in the grammar of his cinema. Folklore for the folks. Action for the fans. ‘Whistle podu’ moments tucked in for good measure, not to mention “object physics” when he throws up things with scant regard to the laws of gravity. It is very difficult — nay challenging to even make an effort to evaluate his acting. Rajini is himself in the signature: take or leave mould. It is very interesting to see Amitabh not take umbrage in costume and the like and play second fiddle with dignity. The talent was never in question. Its harnessing has been suspect. He is in his elements. The female cast is completely wasted including Vijayan and Manju Warrier as Rajini’s on-screen wife. It is Abhirami as Swetha with a negative role that leaves an impression. Fahadh tries hard to steal a few moments. He just about manages. Another star actor misunderstands staring to interrupting evil and there the film-maker may well have suffered an error of judgment. It would have been far more interesting to have had Fahadh in the negative role.

“When you aim, get your target”, the protagonist repeatedly declares. The one person who does not get the message is director Gnanavel.