Overall Rating: 4.25/5
Synopsis:
Gandhi Mahaan (Vikram) is a commerce teacher who turns into a don that runs a liquor syndicate in Tamil Nadu against his father's wishes, who tries to ban liquor in the state by leading a movement. Due to Mahaan deciding to change paths, he is forced to leave his wife Nachi (Simran) and his son Dada (Dhruv Vikram). 20 years later, Dada becomes a police officer and comes back for revenge. What happens next forms the rest of the story.
Positives:
Performances from the entire cast
Chemistry between Vikram and Dhruv
Music and Background Score
First Half and Interval
Pre-climax and Climax
Negatives:
Scenes are not developed to their full potential in some parts
Editing and runtime
Analysis:
Man what can I say, I just have to applaud Karthik Subbaraj for making this film. I can wholeheartedly say that Karthik Subbaraj is back in form. The way the writing flows in the film and the way he directed the film is just crazy. The film starts off in the present and symbolically Karthik shows us the stuff Vikram was suffering through. We are then taken in a flashback to show how Vikram's childhood was and man even though the childhood episode was short it really establishes the conflict that is later rediscovered in the film. From the get-go, we are brought into the world of "Mahaan" with the way he lives his life and how 3 men changed the course of his life entirely. After the first part of the conflict is established within the first 20 mins of the film we are shown the rise of Vikram in 3 separate timelines in the film and each one having its own significance to the story. The timeline that has the most impact in the first half of the film is the partial 1998 timeline and the 2003 timeline where we are shown the real enemies of Vikram in this portion of the film. It first starts off with the establishment of the syndicate and the enemies that stemmed from the 1998 timeline in which the 3 main members are brought to a point of death. The fight scene in this sequence is undoubtedly one of the best I have seen in recent times with the character development of Vikram and Bobby Simha and then the entire fight being in a one-shot format with the added addition of the Naan Naan song. The 2003 portion is the most significant because of the addition of Muthukumar who rises to the ranks quickly to become an MLA but due to Vikram and Simha not agreeing to a deal it causes him to go against them. We then shift to 2016 where we are shown a sequence between Vikram, Simha, and Muthukumar which ends up going in the wrong direction which sets up the interval really well in which we are introduced to Dhruv Vikram as the estranged son of Vikram and the chemistry between both of them in the interval is some of the best I have seen. In the first half, however, a lot of scenes could have been cut out to reduce the run time since the first half does feel very long and at the same time sometimes could have been fleshed out with better writing.
Moving on to the second half, we are taken through a flashback of Dhruv's life on how he grew up trying to get revenge on his father for bringing disgrace to the family and that he tries to take down his father's entire empire in the most honest and legal way possible. Once we are introduced to the point where Dhruv was instructed by Muthukumar to kill all of the main members of the syndicate it introduces arguably the biggest conflict in the film and that is Vikram not being able to kill Dhruv just because he is his son and that he has to let all of his friends die due to this. We are also shown a scene between Vikram and Simran in the second half where they both agree that Dhruv has become more violent and that he should change his ways on how he handles this and the way that both of them interact with each other in the scene is really well done. So with the kidnapping of Dhruv and Simran by Muthukumar, we are shown that Vikram goes to the extent of killing his best friend and he does all of this just to save his family, and the acting here just is applause-worthy. To end this part off let's talk about the final 2o minutes of this film. The interactions between Dhruv and Vikram which is just one of the best-written scenes I have seen in a while. Be it the chemistry between the two or the way Vikram uses Dhruv in these last 20 is arguably so good that it makes you want to crave for more and to find out what happens after the final scene. The film also shows the character arcs for each and every character and every up and down they go which is one of the biggest assets for this film which helps the script so much.
Going on about the other departments music and background score by Santhosh Narayanan is just perfect for this film be it the Vikram entry bgm or the Dhruv bgm's it's just too good. The art department did very well and the visuals by Shreyaas Krishna are really good. Editing could have been way better by cutting down scenes and the runtime. Overall, this is a film that will appeal to a wide range of audiences it is purely a theater film and it should have come out in theaters but make sure you don't miss the film on OTT tho.
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