Vettaiyan Movie Review: Rajinikanth and TJ Gnanavel’s film on encounter killings is honest but a starry mess with too many things to say

Vettaiyan Movie Review: TJ Gnanavel, with his right intentions, makes a Rajinikanth film that doubles up as both fan service and moral compass. But somewhere, it fumbles under the weight it carries.

Vettaiyan

Vettaiyan story

Uptight cop Athiyan (Rajinikanth) is known to be an encounter specialist, who is called to finish off notorious thugs. One such assignment includes him hunting down perpetrators who use government school classrooms to store drugs, after he is tipped off by teacher Saranya (Dushara Vijayan). While he carries out the assignment, it leads to a series of circumstances that make Athiyan question his choices as a policeman.

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Vettaiyan review

Somewhere midway through this TJ Gnanavel and Rajinikanth film, Satyadev, who chooses to look at both sides of a crime and bats for humanity over anything, says, “Justice delayed is justice denied. Justice hurried is justice buried.” This line precisely summarises the two parts of Vettaiyan, the first of which takes you along the perspective of Athiyan and glorifies his heroic acts of encounters, while the latter is all about taking a step back before diving into conclusions. But as a whole, where does Vettaiyan stand? That is a debate with no short answer.

There is no doubt that despite Vettaiyan all being about Rajinikanth, and the heroism the star comes with, is a Gnanavel film sprinkled with his brand of politics. When a resident of a low-income settlement is branded to be a possible criminal and his trustworthiness is doubted, Athiyan is quick to react and debunk the claim. But the film also painstakingly paints a picture to frame Guna as a perverted perpetrator who the audience wants to be immediately finished off, for the whole of the first half. It seems unconvincing when Vettaiyan wants you to believe and perceive a certain way, feeds into your actions, only to disprove it later, and point the gun towards us. In this way, the film rather holds itself accountable, when it should otherwise make us question our beliefs by being a mirror. Vettaiyan, even with its noble intentions, seldom makes a case for what it wants to talk because the second half deviates and addresses about a larger issue of organized crime.

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Gnananvel’s previous film Jai Bhim, critically acclaimed for calling out the custodial torture, fails to continue the sensitive handling in Vettaiyan. The film, at multiple times, falters to deviate the audience from feeding the repeated visuals of a woman being gruesomely sexually harassed and murdered. The sequences, often recalled visually, feel like they want the audience to get desensitized for an issue it is batting for.

There is no doubt that Vettaiyan is a star-studded affair, but the same cannot be said for the highlights of the film. Fahadh Faasil plays Patrick, a seasoned thief whose knowledge works for the benefit, and Athiyan and works as an informer. Gnanavel makes Patrick a man who doesn’t need mass moments to stand out in a film, and yet the quirkiness leaves your heart brimming with joy. Of course, with Fahadh Faasil playing the character, Patrick is the character you want to see more of and know about his story, even as Vettaiyan isn’t about him. But the same cannot be said for other characters. For example, Manju Warrier who plays Athiyan’s wife is shown very little. But we do get to know that she believes the encounters with her husband fall under the karmic cycle from parents and children and hence does not want children. In an instance, we also know she can shoot, and defend herself from the dangers of being a cop’s wife. Does it look cool? Yes. Do we need it? Pretty much debatable.

There are no two ways to tell Vettaiyan is a film with noble intentions. Gnanavel being a journalist himself, knows the power of knowledge and education. He uses Vettaiyan’s second half as a platter to talk about the business built over education, and how corporatization of basic needs like education can lead to. There are no prizes for guessing who runs this educational empire and the notoriously cat-and-mouse chase that happens between the two. Natraj (Rana Daggubati), who runs NAT Academy to plunder the students and their families off their money by baiting them with educational facilities, warrants another film to talk about and tucking a grand messy affair of current educational policies in a film about encounters, only gets messier.

Vettaiyan verdict

Gnanavel, with his right intentions, makes a Rajinikanth film that doubles up as both fan service and moral compass. But somewhere, it fumbles under the weight it carries and misses the target by manu miles.

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