After close to a year, the Govt has finally given permission for the theatres to be opened albeit 50% occupancy. However that in itself was music to the ears but it remains to be seen how confident people would be to venture into the halls coz of the COVID situation. Anywaz the first movie to hit the screens in this Pongal is Lokesh Kanagaraj's "Master" which featured Thalapathy Vijay & Vijay Sethupathy. Can there be a more mouth watering combination in this festive occasion? But the question is whether Lokesh managed to do justice to the star value that was on offer.
Nagercoil, 1992 was the day that Bhavani's (Mahendran) life changed forever as his parents became victims to the wrath of the rivals in the truck association. With time, he ended up in the juvenile home & things moved from bad to worse as he was constantly tortured. This made him into a ruthless gangster & he became a dreaded name in the underworld. Elsewhere, JD (Vijay) was an alcoholic Prof who was loved by his students though the management didnt warm up to his unconventional way of dealing with issues. It is at this juncture that JD is asked to take charge of the inmates of the juvenile home. This essentially set the stage for the clash between the dynamic duo.
After the resounding success of "Kaithi", Lokesh is a well known name among the public & a much sought after director. He has already given us glimpses of his next venture "Vikram" with Ulaganayagan & that seems like a cracker as well. In "Master" he pulled off an absolute stunner when he casted Sethupathi as the antagonist after all the impact of the protagonist could be elevated only if he matched in all levels by his opposite. In that sense, the last time, Vijay had someone as good as that was Vidyut in Murugadoss's "Thuppakki". Scripted by Lokesh, the backstory for Bhavani was interesting but apart from that there was hardly anything that was unpredictable or got us excited. That essentially was the weak point as it neither had a solid story to narrate & still lasted for close to 3 h. Even the choice of numerous supporting characters made no sense as they barely had much to do and this includes the female lead as well.
However, there were quite a few aspects that I enjoyed such as the nod to movies like "Gilli", "Premam" etc especially the reference to Kamal Hasan's character Prof Selvam in "Nammavar" (not surprising after all Lokesh is a self confessed fan of the legend). On the technical side, the stunt choreography, the colour tone Satyan Sooryan used for the frames & Anirudh's music were fine. Thalapathy was cool as ever & has done a fine job but my personal favourite was Sethupathi who oozed confidence & charisma in equal measure apart from the fact that he performed naturally as always. Malavika Menon did her part aptly along with Arjun Das, who seemed poised to be in the industry for some time. As for the rest of the cast, most of them barely had much to do but the kid who helps Malavika's character was pretty impressive.
Verdict: If it wasn't for the Covid situation, it would have shattered all sort of industry records as both the lead actors has given a cracking performance. Unfortunately, Lokesh's writing ought to have been much more imaginative & that is surely a significant let down which gets amplified even further coz of the length of the movie. In short, despite the shortcomings it does provide adequate entertainment!!!
Rating: 2.75/5
Regards...Ben
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