'Aaryan' Movie Review: Long, Flabby But Engaging

There are several ways in which Praveen K gets you to think — and then rethink — the de facto norms of a serial-killer thriller. At about the 20-minute mark in Aaryan, the film has already revealed everything we usually wait to be told in stories of this genre. Not only does the setup end with the film plainly telling us the identity of the serial killer, but it also concludes with this person being given the biggest punishment imaginable. With the whodunit element taken away, Aaryan gets the rare chance to focus on the reasons why a person decides to become a serial killer, and the unique modus operandi that has the entire force running from pillar to post.

It’s a setup that confuses the viewer and their idea of justice. By removing a sense of vengeance from its midst — given how the serial killer can no longer be brought to task — it posits philosophical questions about the chase to stop crimes when redemption is impossible. Within the film’s own skewed logic, we’re rattled by this narrative decision as we try to figure out who we should pledge our loyalties to.

In a sense, we begin to feel as though we’re losing each time Nambi (Vishnu Vishal), the film’s hero, comes close to solving the case. We start to side with the “bad guy,” even if we disagree with his methods. What this does is give us the impression of a hero who just doesn’t seem particularly good at his job. Of the five people said to be in line to be murdered, we move from one to the next as Nambi goofs up yet another opportunity to stop the killings.

It’s a pattern one can only imagine when the star playing the lead is willing to share the spotlight with the villain. As with most serial-killer films, the heroes are often too plain to make much of an impression, and you sense this with Nambi too. The film tries to add layers to him by reintroducing him as he’s undergoing a divorce. In one of the film’s cleverer sequences, we hear a senior police officer introduce Nambi to a colleague as an excellent officer and a workaholic — as though the two are interchangeable. In the very next scene, we learn it’s this same workaholism that has brought him to the verge of divorce.

Yet we’re never quite able to place Nambi as anyone apart from another dutiful, straightforward officer. The romantic flashback adds little to the film’s pace, and we come out knowing just as much about Nambi as we did when we first met him. The same goes for an unconvincing subplot involving a group of gangsters tenuously connected to the film’s central conflict. Despite all the effort that’s gone in, it becomes clear that this angle exists mainly to insert an action block or two.

All of this takes away valuable time from the film’s engaging core, and one wonders why such compromises were necessary in a film that already has so much going for it. What’s most grating is how this time could have been used to give us more of Azhagan, the film’s villain, played by the dependable Selvaraghavan. A little more of him could have resulted in a truly unforgettable antagonist — the kind whose side we find ourselves on. And yet when we finally get to him, all we get is a Shankar-style speech in which he explains his psyche, instead of allowing us to see it from within.

The result is a film that makes you feel all sorts of new things — and a few of the same old ones. A setup this good surely deserved a better film, but even in its present form, there’s enough going on in Aaryan to make you want to stay till the climax, even when it feels like the film began with an ending of sorts.