Muddy review: A promising premise weighed down by messy writing
The movie that comes with 4x4 mud racing as a focus fails to deliver anything but some fast paced racing action
2.0/5
Dec 10, 2021
Muddy
Story: A tale of feud, revenge, family and mud race, Muddy follows the lives of Muthu, a hardworking woodcutter/driver with a fiery past and his cousin brother Karthi, who is a racer. As an old foe comes back seeking vengeance, the brothers come together putting family rivalry to rest.
Review: Muddy starts off with a mud race conducted at a college, where Karthi and Tony go head to head following which the former emerges as champion. The opening scene is promising enough to throw you right into the mud racing core of the movie. The editing and music for the scene is also good enough to suggest the story would hold up to the hype created by pre-release promotions.
However, the movie goes down a slope like a jeep without breaks, real fast. We are soon introduced to Muthu, a hardworking driver who carries chopped wood down the mountains. The introduction in itself is over the top as the director tries to add all the elements necessary for a “mass” scene. And a fight scene where he beats down a union leader played by football legend I.M Vijayan is one among the elements used to establish Muthu as a hero and a good man.
We learn that Karthi from the opening scene is Muthu’s cousin and is now causing trouble to his employer regarding the money he has borrowed from him. We also learn that they were pushed away from each other following a family rivalry and Karthi has been poisoned by his mother to hate Muthu and his family.
The first half of the movie has everything but the mud races — There is over the top action, poorly written dialogues, and a backstory that reveals Muthu as the right hand of Noah played by Renji Panikar, who was the big shot who was smuggling sandalwood from the forest. The first half also goes as far as Muthu putting a senior Forest Range Officer in his place with his backstory and strong dialogues. At the end of the day, just another scene that looked unnecessary and disjointed because of how the writer decided to treat it: with dialogues that are over the top and with too much masala.
Towards the end of the first half, we see the return of Tony, the man whom Karthi had beaten in mud racing during his college days. Karthi has physically imapired Tony, for which he wants revenge, and they decide to settle it on the track, after which Tony swears he would kill Karthi. Though Tony is played to an extent that would resemble a psycho killer, at this point, you would not expect anything less from the movie.
In a rematch of sorts, Tony beats Karthi on the track and now tries to beat him down, when, like clockwork, Muthu shows up, like the hero that he is built up as. Another fight scene in the muddy race tracks ensues, following which Karthi reunites with his brother Muthu. As Karthi returns to a house where they used to live together, where Muthu and his family still live, we see a few flashbacks where Muthu is saving Karthi from school bullies and teaching him to ride a cycle. While these were added to try and pull the heartstrings of the audience, they were missed by a long distance.
As the two brothers unite and get ready for another big race where Tony would participate, Tony’s sidekick tries to take out Karthi and his friend but Noah of all people shows up to save him. However, Muthu’s friend is killed in the process. This anger and an injury sustained by Karthi makes Muthu want to do the race himself, in his regular 4x4 jeep, which was passed down to him by his father.
The final stretch of the movie is a 4x4 mud race, which is pulled off brilliantly, but seems to have dragged on forever. Muddy fails in so many places, almost feeling forced in almost everything they try to do. However, the cinematography is sound and has a few good shots of the landscape and the jeeps.
The music by Ravi Basrur is hit and miss. While at times his background score adds the flavour to the scenes, the song is a let-down. One of the highlights of a movie, which had the scope of having a few, is the fight scenes, which were well choreographed and executed. And the action scenes involving the jeeps felt good to the eye. The fact that the action was all done for real and that even the actors were doing the driving helps this.
Verdict: Muddy is a movie that had the scope of reaching many heights, but is let down by forced writing that tries and fails to make it a mass masala movie. The action involving the 4x4 racing ends up as the only highlight.
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