Avinash Ramachandran

Catastrophic. When more than one character uses this word in a spy thriller, you know that it means just one thing: Global destruction. In Manu Anand’s latest, Mr X, we hear it a few times, and every single time, the weight of the destruction-in-wait is clear. The potential attack has the capacity to obliterate an entire State, and since this is a Tamil film, it is the state of Tamil Nadu, which is in danger, and we have our homegrown R&AW agents who do the thankless job of saving the nation. But despite the massive threat of a nuclear attack, personal equations of the agents jeopardising the mission, and a couple of flashbacks too many, Mr X manages to entertain as long as we, just like the makers, don’t take the film too seriously.

Vanity. A few years back, business magnate Saravanan decided to be the face of his multi-million-dollar empire. He was plastered across TV ads, in newspapers, and on YouTube. The next ideal step was to take up the political route or don the greasepaint. Saravanan decided to become an actor. And then… he rechristened himself as Legend Saravanan, and made his acting debut with… wait for it… Legend. It was heavily trolled for its content, his performance, and everything else in between. Four years later, Legend Saravanan has come back to collect his dues with Leader, under the aegis of director RS Durai Senthilkumar. He embarks on a path to redemption courtesy a clever director, a compelling script, a convincing ensemble, carefree masala-cinema sensibilities, and, of course, good ol’ money.

Money. In a world that is all about division, money holds the ultimate power to make you breach such hierarchies. Of course, it also results in the decimation of a few age-old structures, but that’s par for the course in a world that doesn’t wait for people to catch up. But is money really the ultimate thing? Does the presence or lack of it really determine your worth in the world? As a character in the debutant filmmaker Sivakumar Murugesan’s film says, “Has any parent refused to take care of their child because they didn’t have the financial resources?” One might think it is a poignant tale of parents and children, and how the world treats the geriatric. In a way, Thaai Kizhavi is definitely that kind of a film, but it is also a film that makes you unabashedly laugh out loud with a consistency that has been missing in Tamil cinema for quite a while.

Freedom. It is quite an interesting beast because everyone wants it, but somehow they are tuned to keep it caged and away from others who might not have it. This dichotomy is very telling of the human mind and its vagaries. There is always someone who has more freedom than you, and someone who doesn’t have as much. It is supposed to be an absolute unit, but there are enough caveats in freedom to allow oppression of some kind to be perpetuated through avenues like patriarchy, misogyny, and simple conditioning. Director Vipin Radhakrishnan’s Angammal is one such film that shows how exercising freedom always comes at a cost in a society that values conformity.

Theeyavar Kulai Nadunga opens with the gruesome murder of writer Jebanesan (Logu NPKS) on a lonely road, in the middle of the night, by someone wearing a black suit, black shades, and a black helmet. Is it a serial killer? Why was the writer in tears when talking to his daughter? Why was he killed so brutally? Even as these questions crop up, we are introduced to Inspector Magudapathy (Arjun), a no-nonsense cop, who casually reads the book, “Hidden Evidence”. The film wastes no time in plonking Magudapathy right in the middle of this murder, and he is assigned the case since it happened in his jurisdiction. So far, so good, and I hoped this feeling would stay longer… Alas!