Vettaiyan Movie Review: Commercial cop stories often come with a lot of loud flaunting. The hero can shoot without looking at the subject, he oozes swagger every time he gets out of the cop 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, too. The movie firmly calls for debate on encounter killings, and how these encounters only target the poor and the rich are never at the receiving end of the gunshots. He questions the loopholes in the education system. Gnanavel’s last outing, Jai Bheem, with an intense subject, had touched all the right chords. In Vettaiyan, Gnanavel has an interesting social drama story to tell, but is bogged down by Rajinikanth’s stardom.
Like most commercial heroes, encounter specialist SP Athiyan (Rajinikanth) believes that ‘justice delayed is justice denied’. Judge Satyadev (Amitabh Bachchan), who is all for Human Rights, is against encounter killings, and believes that ‘justice hurried is justice buried’. Between the two extreme schools of thought lies Vettaiyan. While trying to hurriedly deliver justice to government school teacher Sandhya’s (Dushara Vijayan) rape and murder case, Athiyan, succumbing to media, political, and public pressure, kills an innocent man. When Satyadev confronts him with the truth, a devastated Athiyan sets out to find Sandhya’s actual killer, which opens Pandora’s box. Will Athiyan use his guns again, or has he learned to explore the other school of thought?
The first 30 minutes of the film is dedicated to Rajini and his fans. Soon, it turns into a fast-paced investigative thriller as Rajini goes all guns blazing with style and substance. An intro fight, a dance number, and a predictable-yet-appealing storyline with fast-paced narration keep the first half tight, even ending on an impactful note. But, the second half goes down a notch as the movie starts getting preachy and starts feeling lengthy, too. The climax confrontation between Rajinikanth and Rana Daggubati is very cliched. What supposedly is meant to explore Rajinkanth’s character’s moral dilemma ends up becoming another commercial caper with a haves vs the have-nots story. The fights are written for whistles, but the action choreography is average at best.
Despite this, the film rightfully asks several questions about the morality of police encounters, and how fake news, morphed videos, media trials, public pressure can coerce them into making wrong decisions. It talks about how cops, who are supposed to be non-judgmental, are quick to fall for stereotypes when it comes to investigating people with white-collared jobs and blue-collar jobs. It speaks about how the education system is being exploited by the rich, and how the poor and middle-class children with eye full of dreams are their main targets.
Rajinikanth, as usual, does the heavy lifting, but his superstardom makes all other characters feel like extended cameos. Despite this, Fahadh Fasil shines as Patrick aka Battery, a street-smart thief hired by Athiyan to help him with ‘tech things’. Fahadh as a Horlicks-eating chatterbox adds humour and life to several scenes. Amitabh has a towering presence, but the scenes where they (Amitabh and Rajini) come face-to-face 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 is restricted to being Rajinkanth’s support system in the film, but she scores 10/10 in one mass scene towards the end. Rana Daggubati, a shrewd businessman with an aim of encashing education system, appears only towards the end. Anirudh’s background score keeps the movie afloat. Of the four songs – Manasilayo and Hunter Vantaar – stand out, the other two fade in the background. Emotional scenes required a little more depth.
Director Gnanavel delivers yet another social drama but this time wrapped in commercial paper. He had an interesting story in the hand too, but the star-vehicle bug seems to have stopped him from exploring some interesting places in the narration. Overall, the movie is a predictable investigative thriller-social drama that packs several ‘Rajini moments’ for fans to cherish.
