Consciously or unconsciously A.R.Murugadoss has highlighted the all-round capabilities of the Indian Army in tackling a situation. Remember the confidence the nation witnessed when the commandos were air-dropped from a chopper on 26/11 in Mumbai? The army men can run, they can jump 6 feet walls, they can dive and swim away, they can shoot from a distance of 200 m accurately. Most importantly, they can plan and execute with exact precision. When it comes to saving the nation, nothing else forms the priority.

Jagadish is an army man, who is also part of DIA, goes home for a 40 day vacation. He witnesses a bomb blast. To him this is anti-national. He reacts to anti-nationals in a manner humans react to pests. No lock-up, no-trials, no explanations. Termination! He resorts to 3rd degree torture on anti-nationals, the kind of torture that is usually seen in RGV movies.

The major distraction to the movie is the track where the director wants vijay to get married to Kajal Agarwal. He is dealing with a grave situation in Mumbai, and how can anyone think of falling in love and running around trees. Tamil cinema needs to come out of this commercial scare and start making movies that are pure and focus on the plot. In recent times Billa 2 was one such mainstream movie which stuck to the plot without deviating too much. Thuppakki is a major let down in this segment. However considering Vijay’s larger than life image in action movies, this movie is the closest to logic.

Vidyut Jamal is a major strength to the movie. He hardly speaks, but his presence is imminent. His role as an antagonist will remain in audiences memory for a long time to come.

Santhosh Sivan’s cinematography is very effective. The background score by Harris Jayaraj provides the much needed energy to this movie.

And by taking a national topic such as terrorism, Murugadoss is now thinking big. There are all possibilities that this movie would be remade in Bollywood.

Repeat watching is highly recommended, not for the house-hold Jagdish, but for the army-man Jagdish (with the back-ground score running).

–Varun Mannava Gowtham