Maareesan review: Fahadh Faasil, Vadivelu anchor this flawed comedy thriller

Soon after his release from prison, Dhayalan (Fahadh) returns to thievery and is on the hunt for something big, so that he doesn’t have to waste time stealing small items like mobile phones, purses containing only a little cash, and bikes parked at movie theatres anymore. As a part of this plan, he breaks into a house that night where he meets an ageing man, Velayudham Pillai (Vadivelu), chained to a window. Scared by Dhaya’s threat, Velayudham tells him that there’s no money at home, but promises to pay him by making a withdrawal from an ATM. Meanwhile, the old man reveals to the thief that he suffers from the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, which is why his son has handcuffed him to the window. At the ATM, Dhayalan notices that Velayudham has about Rs 25 lakh in his account. After paying some money to Dhaya, Velayudham decides to leave for either his daughter’s place in Palakkad or his friend’s in Thiruvannamalai. Assuring to drop him where he wanted on his bike, Dhaya takes the old man along, although his eye is only on the money. However, hurdles start cropping up in his path as Velayudham forgets the ATM PIN and even details about his life, with the elderly man sometimes mistaking Dhaya for his son Kumar. Nonetheless, the thief remains determined. As the movie progresses, though, we start getting the feeling that there’s more to Velayudham than we see. Is he hiding something from us? Above all, who is he actually?

For a movie titled Maareesan — a rakshasa character in the Hindu epic of Ramayana, who served as an ally of Ravana and played a key role in the kidnapping of Sita — it wastes an awful lot of time disguising itself as a fun comedy wherein the fate of a thief and his loot hinges on the mercy of the victim. Considering that the film’s named Maareesan, it’s almost impossible to believe that this storyline forms its core. Regardless, writer V Krishna Moorthy and director Sudheesh Sankar make the movie circle around a single focal point for so long that it becomes tiring soon.

What makes it worse is that, when Maareesan shifts to a higher gear, Sudheesh fails to give it the dramatic elevation it requires, at least to jolt awake those viewers who might have dozed off. Instead, that entire portion of revealing a part of Velayudham Pillai’s real identity, in the scenes leading up to the interval, is treated as if it isn’t a big deal, thus wasting a good opportunity to showcase a genre shift well.

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Although Maareesan, under a different title and by taking a different narrative route, could have been something as heartwarming and amazing as director Barry Levinson’s Rain Man (1988) — especially considering that Vadivelu and Fahadh are able to seep into the characters’ souls effortlessly and the chemistry between them is spectacular, much like the case of Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise in the Hollywood movie — it is denied the opportunity to utilise that potential. And this happens primarily because the movie, after a point, swerves into the thriller territory and the hollowness that existed in the writing from the start — which we didn’t notice initially because we were too occupied soaking in the charming chemistry that the lead two actors were creating — becomes too evident.

What further detracts from the experience is the soap opera-ish kind of making style director Sudheesh Sankar has adopted — mirroring the many TV serials he has directed over the years — with the climax ending up as the most-affected sequence. Featuring a fight that makes us question our visual perceptual skills, simply because it’s been choreographed and paced in an extremely odd manner, the climax almost ruins the few good things about Maareesan, which is ultimately saved by the lead duo.

In fact, that can be said about pretty much the entire movie, with Fahadh and Vadivelu becoming the ones doing all the heavy lifting while Sudheesh and Krishna Moorthy, among others, just watch with the cameras on. Despite this being the third time that he plays a complete thief (not just a character involved in fraudulent activities) — after Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum (2017) and Vettaiyan (2024) — Fahadh ensures that Dhaya is nothing like Prasad or Battery. His ability to deeply dive into a narrative and fully immerse himself in a character, without relying on stock emotions or clichéd body language tied to the character’s occupation, is evident here as well. His mastery as an actor is most visible in scenes where he is consuming liquor, and the way Dhaya’s drunkenness progresses in an organic manner, devoid of cliches, is nothing short of splendid.

Although Dhaya cannot be called even one of his best, what works in his favour here is the combination with Vadivelu. As if one is the Yin to the other’s Yang, they not only complement each other’s performances but also elevate and inspire one another to push beyond their limits. Even the most mundane conversations between Dhaya and Velayudham, deadened by mediocre dialogues and lazy writing (which gets worse in the second half), never lose our attention because it’s a delight to watch the two’s rapport unfold.

Despite the character suffering from poor writing, Vadivelu’s handling of Velayudham is nothing short of extraordinary. The way the innate innocence in his face translates into the character’s blank stares is a sight to behold. Much like the comedic bits, he also excels at portraying the other shades of Velayudham — be it distress, sadness or even moments of villainy — with ease. It was also very satisfying to hear him singing again.

On the technical front, Yuvan Shankar Raja knocks it out of the park with the background score and the tracks, contributing significantly to Maareesan’s overall quality. Dinesh Manoharan’s costume design and Abdul’s makeup also deserve praise.

Nonetheless, what truly drives the final nail into the film’s coffin is the way Sudheesh Sankar and Krishna Moorthy have handled the core subject of child sexual abuse. Despite it being a sensitive matter, it’s simply thrown into the narrative and dealt with in an extremely superficial and amateur manner, even to the extent that it prompts us to wonder if the makers really had good intentions while deciding to use it as the movie’s crux. Much like most films directed by men and revolving around themes like rape and assault, Maareesan also completely invisibilises the victims and survivors and turns it into yet another male-saviour narrative. The erasure of victims is so blatant that the only time they are shown on screen is to give viewers a glimpse of the trauma they went through, to justify the actions of Velayudham. It’s as if they had no existence before the crime they faced or an identity beyond that. Besides making Velayudham and Dhaya say dialogues denouncing child sexual abuse and the need for stringent punishments for the perpetrators, the film as a whole doesn’t contribute to that cause, and hence, the lines eventually come across as performative.

For a person to transform, realising their past mistakes and problematic mindsets, thus registering character growth, is totally plausible. So, the possibility that the same Sudheesh Sankar who made the atrocious Villali Veeran could have undergone a change of heart and chosen to make a film about child sexual abuse was not out of the question. However, the way the topic has been woven into Maareesan and handled makes one wonder, did he really mean to condemn it? Or was he simply and shamelessly playing to the gallery both times? First, by creating a misogynistic monolith when such harmful portrayals were normalised, and now, by making a film about child sexual abuse at a time when socially conscious cinema is in the spotlight.

Maareesan movie cast: Fahadh Faasil, Vadivelu, Kovai Sarala, Vivek Prasanna, Sithara
Maareesan movie director: Sudheesh Sankar
Maareesan movie rating: 2 stars