Rajini preaches Gnanavel's school of thought with style

Vettaiyan Movie Review: Commercial police stories often involve a lot of loud display. The hero can shoot without looking at the subject, and he beams with pride every time he gets out of the patrol car. For obvious reasons, Newton's law of gravity does not exist. TJ Gnanavel's latest outing with Rajinikanth, Vettaiyan, ticks all these boxes. But there is more. The film strongly calls for a debate about encounter killings and the fact that these encounters only target the poor and the rich are never victims of the shooting. He questions the gaps in the education system. Gnanavel's last outing, Jai Bheem, had hit all the right chords with an intense theme. With 'Vettaiyan', Gnanavel has an interesting social drama story to tell, but Rajinikanth's fame slows him down.

Like most commercial heroes, encounter specialist SP Athiyan (Rajinikanth) believes that “justice delayed is justice denied”. Justice Satyadev (Amitabh Bachchan), who is fully committed to human rights, is against encounter killings and believes that “justice hastened means justice buried”. Between the two extreme schools of thought lies Vettaiyan. While Athiyan tries to bring swift justice in the rape and murder case of government school teacher Sandhya (Dushara Vijayan), he succumbs to media, political and public pressure and kills an innocent man. When Satyadev confronts him with the truth, the devastated Athiyan sets out to find Sandhya's real murderer, which opens Pandora's box. Will Athiyan use his weapons again or has he learned to explore the other school of thought?

The first 30 minutes of the film are dedicated to Rajini and his fans. It soon becomes a fast-paced investigative thriller in which Rajini goes full throttle with style and substance. An intro fight, a dance number and a predictable yet engaging plot with a fast-paced narrative keep the first half exciting and even end on an impressive note. But things go a bit downhill in the second half as the film becomes increasingly preachy and also feels drawn out. The climactic confrontation between Rajinikanth and Rana Daggubati is very cliched. What is ostensibly meant to explore the moral dilemma of Rajinkanth's character ends up becoming another commercial adventure with a haves and have-nots story. The fights are scripted for whistles, but the action choreography is average at best.

However, the film rightly raises several questions about the morality of police operations and how fake news, manipulated videos, media trials and public pressure can force them to make wrong decisions. It's about how police officers, who aren't supposed to be prejudiced, easily fall for stereotypes when it comes to investigating people with white-collar and blue-collar jobs. It's about how the education system is exploited by the rich and how the poor and dreamy middle class children are their main targets.

Rajinikanth does the heavy lifting, as usual, but his superstar status makes all the other characters seem like extended cameos. Nevertheless, Fahadh Fasil shines as Patrick aka Battery, a clever thief who is hired by Athiyan to help him with “technical things”. Fahadh as the Horlicks-guzzling chatterbox brings humor and life to several scenes. Amitabh has a huge presence but the scenes where they (Amitabh and Rajini) face each other are not too strong. The dialogues between them could have been better. Manju Warrier plays Rajinkanth's wife, who runs a YouTube channel. Her role in the film is limited to being Rajinkanth's supporter but towards the end she scores 10/10 in a crowd scene. Rana Daggubati, a shrewd businessman intent on ruining the education system, only appears towards the end. Anirudh's background music keeps the film afloat. Of the four songs – Manasilayo and Hunter Vantaar – they stand out, the other two fade into the background. Emotional scenes required a little more depth.

Director Gnanavel delivers another social drama, but this time wrapped in commercial paper. He also had an interesting story on his hands, but the Starcraft bug seems to have stopped him from exploring some interesting places in the narrative. Overall, the film is a predictable investigative thriller social drama that will leave fans with plenty of 'Rajini moments' in their memories.