'Vaa Vaathiyar' Movie Review: Something Is Amiss In Karthi's Vigilante Movie Remix

Among the many clever ideas that make Nalan Kumarasamy’s Vaa Vaathiyar a peculiar beast is how the first half both begins and ends with death. The film opens on December 24, 1987, the very day MGR passed away. We see crosscuts of a pregnant mother being taken to the hospital, when a group of the idol’s die-hard fans force the local theatre to play the print of an old MGR classic. They’re worried about their idol’s health who is being treated in the US and try to pacify themselves by re-watching the same film, arguably for the 100th time. The moment news of MGR’s death arrives, we see the first cries of a baby boy taking over the screen. He even has a mole under his right foot, just like MGR did. It’s a mass movie miracle, reminding one of how KGF opens with the discovery of gold, just as Rocky is born. Nalan doesn’t just want to make a tried-and-tested star vehicle.... he also wants to remix the formula upon which the biggest-ever star was created.

He tries to do this by subverting the character arc of the regular mass movie hero. The boy, born on the same day MGR dies, is nothing like the virtuous saviour he’s named after. He’s named Ramu (Karthi) by his grandad (Rajkiran), who tries to raise him to be a do-gooder. But he’s more Nambiar (the star’s arch on-screen rival) than MGR, we’re soon told. And as Ramu grows up, he doesn’t become a police officer to save all of mankind. Instead, he’s as corrupt as they come, the kind who deceives his own grandfather every chance he gets. It’s a clever setup, the sort that made NTR’s Temper an original mass movie idea. But if you thought Vaa Vaathiyar is going to be about Ramu’s transformation from Nambiar to MGR, you’re not giving Nalan enough credit.

This is where the film’s second death comes into the picture. For the longest time, Ramu’s birth event appears to be a mere coincidence that has nothing to do with how he behaves. But when another important person passes away, that’s when the Vaathiyar comes alive. From the makings of a mass movie, we’re suddenly told that we’re now watching an origins story of a superhero. Logic can wait.

The narrative motor of what’s remaining of Vaa Vaathiyar too draws from another MGR staple: the double action movie. But instead of writing a good guy to counter the evils of Ramu, Nalan chooses to incorporate the bare-bones idea of Enga Veettu Pillai into his film. And instead of separating the twins at birth, the film asks, “Why can’t MGR and Nambiar coexist within the same person”?

But does Vaa Vaathiyar do a lot with this one-in-a-thousand idea? Not nearly enough. Instead of expanding this character and forcing him to enter unforeseen circumstances, the film tries to use this dual personality as just one of the many quirks that make up the film. The pattern, even after this conflict, follows the path of the regular, tried-and-tested masala movie formula. So, if you’ve felt like the hero is different, the same cannot be said about the villains and the characters that surround him. The bigger conflict in the film, involving a bribe of $142 million, feels too vague and silly, just like we’re always dealing with a second of set of vigilantes, although they don’t really add much to the film. On paper, it gives us the notion of MGR himself being born again, as though he’s here to save us from a particularly modern-day, tech-driven problem. But as we’re watching the film, there’s nothing that excites us apart from the gimmick of seeing Karthi behave like MGR.

The scenes work much better when you think of them as standalone entities. The art direction is in itself so out-of-the world that you’re wondering where they sourced this particular tile from or how on earth they managed to get hundreds of extras to look like the bust of Socrates. But these scenes, however fun they are individually, never quite fit into the bigger picture. So of course, there’s something funny about Krithi Shetty playing an Oracle who can speak to spirits, but does she really mean anything to the larger film? The same can be said about the many Anniyan-like sequences too, where the MGR within Ramu must come face-to-face with his evil side. Here again, you’re reading the scene like it's just another one of Nalan’s quirky ideas, rather than a plot device that takes things forward.

None of this results in a film that feels unwatchable by any stretch. It’s just the disappointment that you’re left with after you see how little the makers have managed to do with what feels like a million-dollar idea. In a film that’s so full of MGR-isms, sadly it’s the Nalanisms that bring the house down.