‘Maargan’ movie overview: Vijay Antony, debutant Ajay Dishan steer an impressive genre-blender with a faltering finish

Editor-turned-director Leo John Paul’s Maargan is the sort of genre-blender that shouldn’t have labored theoretically — who would take a crime investigation critically if there’s a lesser-known supernatural ingredient within the combine? Sure, we’ve seen investigations surrounding ghosts or legendary creatures and monsters, however seldom with the supernatural side in Maargan. The movie is an bold, whimsical mixture of genres, and even imagining how the story would have been conceptualised and pitched to guide star and producer Vijay Antony feels fascinating. Many wacky concepts within the movie don’t make sense exterior the world of the movie.

Take, as an example, the supernatural ingredient on the centre; debutant Ajay Dishan’s character (the actor is impressive in his debut) Tamizharivu is a proficient younger swimmer with an eidetic reminiscence. His greatest flex, nonetheless, is a superpower of types — he can entry and swim by way of the astral airplane, a metaphysical realm the place the logic of our bodily world doesn’t apply. Sounds complicated?

Move on to the following paragraph to keep away from the next spoiler-y analogy, however that is fascinating, to say the least. Say you had a bland sambar rice at your workplace canteen yesterday however missed testing the opposite choices out there on the counter; should you had been like Tamizharivu, you might relive the reminiscence of your lunchtime from yesterday, after which carry out an astral projection of types and swim by way of that actuality at that time of time, and even go into the canteen kitchen with out anybody noticing your astral physique. Only right here, the character has an agenda much more critical than lentil stew.

If Tamizharivu’s powers are far-fetched, he’s additionally suspected to be a serial killer with an unnerving modus operandi: injecting younger ladies with a mysterious drug that blackens their our bodies and kills them immediately. This case is being investigated by Assistant Directorate General of Police, Dhruv Korak (Vijay), who, after having already crossed paths with the killer, is left with half his physique blackened and underneath treatment. So image an investigation with a cop who’s a dwelling reminder of the destiny of the victims.

But right here’s the shock: regardless of such wild concepts within the combine, Leo John Paul’s Maargan impressively brings all of it collectively to a massive extent, turning into a completely participating thriller. The movie’s consideration to element is what first makes you sit proper up within the preliminary parts. Before Dhruv will get a name informing of a homicide of a related modus operandi in Chennai, the cop lies wasted on the ground of his Mumbai flat. Signs of a bleak night time throughout him, he’s mendacity down on the left facet of his physique, positioned in such a approach that when he wakes up, the digital camera reveals the blackened left facet of his physique. But right here’s the element a much less critical filmmaker would have missed out on: in a passing second, as he’s about to open a textual content, he depends on his proper hand to maneuver his left, a signal of a limb that fell asleep from numbness after supporting the burden of his physique in a single day.

This may seem to be a frivolous, even apparent, element, however it’s this meticulousness that grounds us on the planet of Maargan. Everything Dhruv does and approaches feels actual — when he realises an interrogation may take six hours, he orders lunch and low for his group, which incorporates Kaali (Mahanadhi Shankar) and Sruthi (Brigida Saga) — and this permits the audiences to purchase Dhruv’s shock when he witnesses the supernatural side of the story. The key to a gripping investigative thriller is the way it pulls you into its world from the start, and Maargan excels in that regard, additionally due to the background scores and a color grade that provides to the ambiance. It helps that, not like most common investigative thrillers, the crux of Maargan’s story begins after a reasonably intriguing suspect is already in custody. Of late, the issue that has plagued many Tamil thrillers is how contrived some set-ups and pay-offs really feel; right here, you want how a button digital camera or a journal cowl or a element about chlorine-filled water recur in a while.

Vijay Antony in a nonetheless from ‘Maargan’
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While Maargan does a nice job of framing its personal logic for the supernatural world and sticking by it, there are fairly a few lapses within the real-world logic within the movie. The meticulousness intimately will get misplaced because the story progresses. For occasion, you surprise how the folks Dhruv meets in his investigation — together with acquaintances he hasn’t met in a decade — don’t appear perturbed or stunned by the seen decolouration in his physique. Moreover, the entire part revolving round Tamizharivu’s ex-girlfriend feels cheesy, and also you surprise if the aim may have been achieved extra successfully. Also, is it essential for cops to have suffered a tragedy to take a case critically? Sure, a troubled cop will get the artistic liberty to do as he needs, even function exterior the yellow strains if wanted, however this sample does get a bit exhausting, particularly if the tragedy is expounded to the case in hand.

Now, what may come too near turning the tide towards the movie is how the ultimate act is written and handled. The director ties the ends by going after a sitting duck that one may see coming from distant, and even when this was the entire level of the story, you surprise if it may have been dealt with in a much less didactic trend.

On the face of it, Maargan may’ve been every other serial killer investigative thriller, if not for the supernatural side that elevates it into one thing extra. Which is why it’s unimaginable to accept the blunt actuality it forces upon us in the direction of the top. If some real-world concepts within the investigation may use a supernatural twist, you surprise why the opposite real-world concepts spelt out within the climax weren’t handled equally with out turning didactic. The movie fails to take action regardless of having all the mandatory elements for it.

If something, Maargan is an amusingly paradoxical illustration of what Tamil cinema may do extra of with — stars experimenting with genres — in addition to what it may do away from. We don’t want to finish all movies with an in-your-face ethical lesson ( and we don’t want one that may’t even get its ‘isms’ proper).

Maargan is at the moment operating in theatres

Published – June 27, 2025 06:06 pm IST