Iru Mugan (Tamil, 2016)

Vikram is the talking-point of the movie. Be it the bearded bozo look or the clean-shaven undercover agent – he pulls it off with the ease that he is well known for. He is at his usual self and for a man who has essayed more challenging roles, this would have been a stroll in the park.

If the bearded look drove the first half, the Dr.Love character shoulders the second half. The mannerism, costumes, accent and unnerving demeanor stand out. Vikram once again proves that he is a true artist and his experimentation with roles that offer him scope to perform continues in Iru Mugan.

Nayantara as the hot and congenial hacker sizzles in every frame. She ends up owning the ‘Halena’ song with her grace and glamor. Nithya Menon neatly essays the role assigned to her as is functional. Nassar, Karunakaran and Thambi Ramaiah are noticeable among the supporting cast.

R. D. Rajasekhar’s cinematography oozes brilliance in frames that capture the beauty of Kashmir & Malaysia. Harris Jayaraj’s background score is a true pillar for the film.

Anand Shankar’s direction and story narration doesn’t just test the intelligence of the audience but is also a real insult to all the movie-watching public. The director tries hard to keep the audience engaged with his interlaced narration of present and past, but fails to garner any kind of traction. The please-end-soon sort of songs and their terrible placement in the story doesn’t help the narration in any way. The humor element too is not well used with Thambi Ramaiah’s supposed comic relief not evoking much laughter.

Usage of complex chemical names and scientific formulae may make a movie rich in aesthetical sense but lack of importance attached to all other details lets the story down. Bottles in hospitals labeled Chloroform & Laughing gas makes one draw comparisons to yesteryear movies where brown poison bottles where labeled likewise. Usage of Ctrl + Alt + Del + F3 to hack into a system, searching criminals in a World Popularity database, the villain’s brother carrying around a laptop containing the gang’s secrets like his cellphone and usage of walkie-talkies to talk to someone in mid-air is an outright abuse on the wisdom of general public and ends up adding to the laughing stock points of an already lackluster movie.