I’ve said it a few before, and I’ll repeat: if you love watching South Indian films, you should get out of the YouTube bubble and get subscriptions to a couple of OTT platforms. Watching Hindi dubbed versions of Tamil or Telugu films is like eating momo with mayonnaise and barbecue sauce—you just don’t get the authentic flavor. And Amazon Prime—which has plenty of South India movies in all regional languages—is not very expensive to get either.
Anyways, this week I watched “Mahaan” (transl. “The Great Man”), a Tamil-language action thriller starring Vikram. Most of you may remember Vikram from the 2015 thriller “I”, which was one of the first movies to break out among the Nepali audience and get them hooked to South Indian cinema. It’s popularity, followed by back-to-back action movies from Vikram, earned him a name in Nepal.
Going back to the movie, Mahaan is about Gandhi Mahaan (Vikram), the prodigal son in a family of freedom fighters and devout Gandhians. Starting in flashbacks, the film tells of how Gandhi Mahaan as a teenager in 1968 brought disgrace to his family by drinking and playing cards with the local boys. Fast-forward to 1996 and Gandhi is a schoolteacher living a clean life with his wife Nachi (Simra) and son Dada (Druv Vikram)—free from the ‘sins’ of gambling and drinking.
Then, on his 40th birthday, Gandhi meets a beggar who tells him how boring and mundane his life so far has been and that only five percent of people in the world get to live the way they want to. Influenced by the beggar’s words, Gandhi goes on a drinking spree and ends up at a gambling den owned by Sathyavan (Bobby Simha), his childhood friend and also the father of his former student Rocky (Sanath).
With his mathematical skills, Gandhi makes a killing at the den and ends up partying all night with Sathyavan and Rocky. But that fateful night changes everything for him and his family and sends Gandhi into the criminal world, the repercussions of which will hit him years later.
Told over a span of almost 50 years, Mahaan’s storyline has enough twists to turn it into a 10-episode series. From Gandhi’s childhood to his old age, the film shows him in different lights under different circumstances, making him a hero, an anti-hero and a villain. The screenplay moves fast, but still strongly connects the multitudes of dots in the film’s story, and the cinematography is typical South India—giving the audience some never-seen-before POVs. Karthik Subbaraj’s writing and direction are the film’s strongest aspects.
To pull off a movie with such strong writing and direction, the actors must be onboard with the production team. In this case, Vikram again proves why he is such a big name in South Indian cinema. From playing a 40-year-old school-teacher and a family man to transitioning into a criminal kingpin, Vikram never leaves his character and justifies Gandhi’s every move.
Bobby Simha—who’s not exactly been given a superstar status but never fails to impress—as Sathyavan, matches Vikram’s prowess in the movie as his close friend and partner in crime. Much younger than Vikram in real life, Simha comes to the screen with a high level of maturity to match his senior co-star’s intense presence. Together, the duo takes away much attention from other characters.
Who should watch it?
Mahaan is a commercial movie. If you’re not well acquainted with mainstream South Indian cinema, you may not connect with it or with this review. The praises heaped on the story, screenplay, acting and direction are all based on the fact that this movie was made with one and only one purpose—to entertain. And entertain it will all those who have enjoyed Tamil blockbusters before.
Rating: 3.5 stars
Genre: Action thriller
Actors: Vikram, Bobby Simha, Simran Bagga
Director: Karthik Subbaraj
Run time: 2hrs 43mins
