Vaa Vaathiyaar movie review: Karthi’s shoddy vigilante film makes Indian Thatha look cool

As Rameshwaran was born on the same day and around the same time that MGR passed away in 1987, his grandfather (Rajkiran), an ardent fan of the icon, believes that he is MGR’s reincarnation. Convinced that his grandson will also do great things like Vaathiyaar and become a ray of hope for the commoners, the old man introduces him to MGR films from a young age and instils in him the idol’s mannerisms and teachings. Although initially attracted to it, Rameshwaran realises that the idealistic MGR way of life won’t take him anywhere and decides to follow MN Nambiar’s (known for his villainous roles) devious path instead. While he becomes a police officer, as his beloved grandfather wished, Rameshwaran is corrupted to the core. At one point, he even colludes with kingmaker Periasamy (Sathyaraj) and extends help to him and the Chief Minister (Nizhalgal Ravi) to crush a public protest that’s been causing them a headache and eliminate an anonymous citizen activist group that exposed one of Periasamy’s key plans. While his grandfather is initially unaware of Rameshwaran’s illegal activities, believing him to be righteous, he is heartbroken upon learning the truth. However, this moment marks a change in all their lives. In a way, MGR himself makes an appearance here to fix everything and weed out the evil from Rameshwaran and society at large.

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Vaa Vaathiyaar’s story is essentially something an overreactive, verbose friend of ours might blurt out during a drinking session. Four pegs in, the so-called righteous citizen within them might awaken and proclaim, “How amazing would it be if MGR returned to teach all these tainted fellows a lesson with his whip?!” In that buzz, we might also agree without realising that it’s simply something that should be forgotten once sober — much like the business ideas we think are brilliant while discussing them drunk, only to realise how ridiculous they are once sobriety dawns. However, it seems that Team Vaa Vaathiyaar took such an idea and crafted an entire feature film around it, ultimately disappointing both themselves and us.

The most disheartening thing about Vaa Vaathiyaar is that it comes from Nalan Kumarasamy, who gifted Tamil cinema the pathbreaking Soodhu Kavvum (2013) and the extraordinary Kadhalum Kadandhu Pogum (2016). In his first feature film venture in a decade, Nalan fails miserably to find the right tone for his narrative, which used to be one of his strongest qualities. From the very beginning, the hollowness of Vaa Vaathiyaar is evident, as the opening flashback, showing Rameshwaran and his grandfather cherishing everything MGR, gives a major déjà vu of old movies. Although one could argue that this is because Vaa Vaathiyaar has been crafted as a tribute to the masala genre, it never feels inspired, and hence appears lazy on the part of the makers.

Watch Vaa Vaathiyaar trailer here:

Intriguingly, almost no one gets a proper intro — neither the hero (Karthi) nor the villain (Sathyaraj). Instead, they appear as the story organically unfolds. However, it’s only in these small, trivial aspects that Nalan’s experimentation has worked, as almost no character in the movie has any depth and comes across as extremely half-cooked and directionless. Apart from dressing like MGR all the time and forcing his grandson to emulate him, how much does Rajkiran admire the icon? The movie never shows. Although it is established that Rameshwaran became a cop at his grandfather’s wish, we are never shown the extent of their love for each other. Also, what’s the role of Wu (Krithi Shetty), a young content creator who supposedly has the power to communicate with spirits, in all this, and why is she helping a cop-turned-vigilante from the word go? Why did the film give so much build-up to Periasamy and his daughter, Malini, initially, yet offer them no scenes to be formidable villains? Nalan is totally not in the mood to provide answers this time.

Although his script evidently required an experimental, out-of-the-box filmmaking style to appear fresh and intriguing, the director surprisingly denies the movie this. The little bits of audio-visual experimentation he has attempted also backfire significantly, owing to a lack of conviction. One of the biggest shortcomings of the movie is the uninspired and middling editing by Vetre Krishnan, which fails to give the film any flavour and makes it look as plain as possible. Santhosh Narayanan’s music, particularly the background score, has also played spoilsport in quite a few instances, with the placement of some tracks coming across as outright senseless.

Krithi Shetty and Karthi in Vaa Vaathiyaar. (Credit: Facebook/@StudioGreenOfficial)

As I mentioned earlier, the movie clearly contained elements that could have turned it into a fascinating psychological-fantasy-vigilante actioner. Just imagine: a young boy who wishes to become a righteous leader of the masses, like his icon, realises that this path won’t bring him fortune and ultimately succumbs to corruption. He is then hunted down by his conscience and also develops Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), with one personality being a tainted cop and the other a version of his icon, leading to a battle of angels vs demons within his mind. However, what Vaa Vaathiyaar ends up being instead is a shadow without substance of Anniyan (2005), possessed by the ghost of Indian Thatha — and that too from Indian 2 (2024) and not even the original Indian (1996) — with theatrics and moral science lectures taking centre stage while the script is asked to deboard even before the trip begins.

Although there’s no doubt that MGR remains a beloved figure in Tamil Nadu, despite certain grey chapters in his life, anchoring the film solely on him and the nostalgia surrounding him may have been a poor creative choice, particularly since the movie offers little more than the MGR aura. It almost appears as if the makers decided to simply piggyback on the legacy of the actor-politician to avoid putting much effort into creating something fresh.

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It’s also interesting that such a movie has come out months before the 2026 Tamil Nadu Assembly elections; a recent similar incident was director Mahi V Raghav’s Mammootty-starrer Yatra (2019). Also revolving around a real-life political leader (YS Rajasekhara Reddy), Yatra was released right before the 2019 Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections. Although Vaa Vaathiyaar isn’t a biopic and only offers a mix of fiction and non-fiction, it’s senseless to deny that it’s a propaganda movie that positions MGR, the founder of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) — currently the main opposition party in the TN Assembly — as the sole solution to everything rotten in the state, which is depicted in the film to be ruled by a party named SMK, led by a leader who bears a striking resemblance to incumbent Chief Minister MK Stalin of DMK. If anything, Vaa Vaathiyaar may have done more damage than good for those who expected to ride on MGR’s shoulders. If spirits are real, I am sure MGR’s would be crying right now, seeing the terrible quality of the movie made around him.

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Even as Karthi has tried his level best here, his performance never compensates for the movie’s overall lacklustre quality. Krithi Shetty and Sathyaraj deliver uninspired portrayals of underwritten characters, while Rajkiran gives a poor performance in a stereotypical grandfather role he often plays these days. Also, it’s appalling that we have to mention the gross age gap between the male and female leads in every star-driven movie. Here, a 22-year-old Krithi Shetty is made to romance a 48-year-old Karthi. Make of this what you will.

While Indian 2 had that so-bad-it’s-good quality, thanks to the numerous cringeworthy and inane moments (Chitra Aravindan Social Media says ‘Hi’), Vaa Vaathiyaar is simply unimpressive and thus doesn’t even qualify for an entertaining hate-watch. If anything, Vaa Vaathiyaar just makes Indian Thatha look slightly cooler, as at least the latter became a big joke.

Vaa Vaathiyaar movie cast: Karthi, Krithi Shetty, Sathyaraj, Rajkiran, Anand Raj, Shilpa Manjunath, Karunakaran
Vaa Vaathiyaar movie director: Nalan Kumarasamy
Vaa Vaathiyaar movie rating: 1.5 stars