Ace

Vijay Sethupathi and director Arumugakumar’s debut collaboration ‘Oru Nalla Naal Paathu Solren’ polarised audiences completely - viewers either loved its zany approach or absolutely despised it. There’s no middle ground. When the duo reunited for ‘Ace’, expectations were quite so-so. The question remained: Could they craft a film with universal appeal this time around? Let’s find out! Bold Kannan (Vijay Sethupathi) is an enigmatic figure desperate to shed his criminal past and start a new life. His only link to his former life is his last phone call to imprisoned associates. Relocating to Malaysia, he befriends Arivu (Yogi Babu), a rag picker who masquerades as a businessman to impress Kalpana (Divya Pillai), a hotel owner.

Ace is a film one could call “ironically nostalgic”. It’s neither intentionally aspiring to appeal to one’s nostalgia by trying to recreate a beloved time period, nor is it a film that’s set in the 80s or 90s. Ace is set very much in 2025, and it’s a film that wants to be the sort of cool movie from back when Orkut was considered fashionable. This isn’t just because it borrows elements from decade-defining films such as the Oceans series or gangster comedies like Snatch (2000) or Swordfish (2001). It also feels like a movie that’s stuck in that same period without realising that a film needs to do a lot more to be considered funny today. For one, the makers of Ace feel they’ve done enough just by creating a bunch of wacky characters to get us to look past scene after scene of impossibly convoluted sequences. It is partly a bank heist comedy that shuffles between a long-winded chase movie and a melodramatic love story between a hero who has nothing to lose, and a girl confined to her complex circumstances. Tying up the many disconnected strands of the film is Yogi Babu’s Arivu, a character so loud and underwritten that he simply shouts a joke or two in his attempt to save a dry scene.

In Ace, multiple things keep happening at the same time. There is so much chaos, and a lot more convenience. But it is that kind of film where we know everything will fall in place, simply because what’s the point otherwise? When we watch Ocean’s Eleven, we want the protagonists to steal and escape. Or closer home, when we watch Sadhuranga Vettai, we want the heist to be successful because it is cathartic to see a well-laid plan come into fruition despite all odds. Just like every Indian heist film, there is a larger reason for the protagonists to indulge in this crime, but writer-director Arumugakumar doesn’t aim for the stars in Ace. His reason is simple, his heist is simpler, and the execution is simplest. Then what holds the film together? The chaos.