Subhash K Raj’s Blast is a movie that’s written for and around its high moments. It’s almost like Subhash knows how these moments will be received in the theatre, and he also understands the careful plotting and planning that’s required for them to land, once he allows them to. For this, he has figured out his own method to create a reasonably engaging action comedy around an idea that may have been too small, even for a short film.
He does this because he looks at Blast like it’s a multi-narrative, along the lines of a film like Lokesh Kanagaraj’s Maanagaram (2017). Within the first half hour, he doesn’t stop by introducing us to the four members of the film’s central family and their ways. He spends just as much time detailing a whole array of characters that make up the antagonising force acting against this family. Some of the characters, like Toby (Vinod Sagar), get a bigger backstory than most protagonists. We’re told that he has a temper, that he’s an abuser and that he’s just gotten out of jail. We’re also told that he desperately wants to join a gang and that he’s looking to make a quick buck. But when all of this information is presented to us first, we do not have a single idea of who he is and where he fits in with reference to Nila (Preity Mukhundhan) and her family.
It’s a strange approach that can be as frustrating as it can be fun. Just when you feel like the film’s finally done setting up its major conflict, it goes on to introduce us to a few more characters and a backstory for each we feel we have no use for. It’s a longish movie of around 140 minutes, and all of this plotting takes its time to finally make sense. Oddly, Blast is also that rare film that gives the author’s backing to the bad guys over the good ones.
But it’s not that Subash doesn’t know what he’s getting to and the patience he’s demanding from us. For a film about a karate-trained family and the people they need to keep out of their lives, it has its way of earning its big moments. It’s a film that begins with Nila having to deal with a bully and her karate master father Rajaram (Arjun), training her to grow up to become a no-nonsense fighter. Within the same family setup, Subash also creates a conflict between this father-daughter duo and their two pacifist family members and just when you think you know them, you feel like the film has a few tricks left to surprise you.
This is why we feel engaged through much of its runtime. Despite the long list of characters and the time it spends placing them in the larger scheme of things, Blast has a way keeping the film light, without any self seriousness. So we don’t mind it when an awkward detail about Rajaram building a new toilet, fits in conveniently to the larger plot. We also don’t care about a particularly predictable Chekhov’s Gun that is fired at us, almost exactly like we had imagined it to. The makers know the aspirations of their film and how it’s just to give the viewers a good time and nothing more.
Which they do thanks to how well it executes its major action set pieces. Nila doesn’t just kick ass as this karate kid, but she’s also never reduced to another young female heroine that needs a romantic angle. Rajaram too doesn’t take up much time to explain why he is, the way he is with a short monologue that tells us everything we need to know about his righteousness. Of course there are stretches in the film that make you feel like they’re stretching the plot too far and you also wish the set of supporting actors were chosen more carefully. Ravi Basrur’s BGM too has a way of tiring you out, especially when it’s required of him to introduce us to so many characters, each with their own heavy score. But when everything clicks into place, Blast has a way of making you feel like it has earned your whistles. Larger points about the environment, corruption and most obviously gender politics, are made without any sermonising and this makes the film that much more endearing. It’s a cool new way to say the same old thing, but at least we all have fun in the process.