I’ve seen a lot of people saying Jagame Thanthiram was a bad movie and I also feel Mahaan didn’t get as much hype as I wanted it to. Also, I think Vikram, the movie, is a bit overrated.

I know with Jagame Thanthiram, there were people saying the tonal change didn’t work and wasn’t balanced very well, which I agree. I also found Dhruv’s acting in Mahaan very jarring. But I think Mahaan and Jagame were so unique in the way they told their stories, from the cinematography to the music to the editing in certain places, not to mention, Mahaan had imo, one of the best fight cinematography in Tamil cinema with the first fight scene near the car when the protagonists were half-passed out. The camera-work was excellent. I would even go as far to say that particular action scene was better than most of the action scenes in Vikram.

In Vikram, there was never any tension in the story despite it being somewhat of a thriller with investigative mystery elements. The action scenes didn’t feel tense either, they also didn’t feel like they were taking place in an actual, tangible, space, because of the cinematography and set design, especially the mocobot fight which just took place in an empty, pitch black area. The cgi was terrible for such a big movie too, like Vikram in the motorbike riding off or Santhanam’s house collapse. There were merely many high, massy moments strung together by the most cliche storyline, told in the most cliche way. Everything was predictable and by-the-books. The moment the girlfriend appears in the story for example, you know she is just there to die and propel the protagonist forward in the story. Scene by scene, it’s as though they weren’t really bothered about anything really landing or engaging with the audience. Lokesh Kanakaraj can make good movies like Kaithi, which felt like a John Carpenter movie on steroids, but with Vikram he was just pandering to a certain audience who would lap anything up, and made a bland movie.

I think Karthik Subburaj’s movies occupy a unique space in tamil cinema. Plus, for a tamil writer-director who does non-‘template’ movies, his writing is definitely way above average, and you can tell he admires a lot of international screenplays. While people say he has become too ambitious/ arrogant after Petta, I personally think he realised he now has more people watching, so he tries to cater to both a general audience as well as those who watch a movie for his sensibilities. That is a difficult balancing act and it doesn’t always work, but I think his movies are so unique, interesting and technically sound, and don’t always get enough credit.