The south Indian film industry is one that is appreciated almost all over India. With its tacky action and unrealistic depictions of heroes, the films nonetheless succeed in presenting a competent entertainment experience. Personally, that was the case for Bahubali and now Vikram. The excessive use of CGI, prevailing of good over evil without any gray area or personal dilemma. Vikram even features a detective helping out a vigilante who is technically carrying out terrorist-like operations. As an ardent fan of Batman and the principles that he operates with, the confidence that this is all depicted in with respect to opposing a simple villain is too lightweight. Beating up anyone who opposes you, supremely vilifying someone who runs a drug ring, or to the downright slightly inappropriate treatment of women characters. There is a heartfelt scene when Kamal Haasan treats a prostitute with some kind form of affection but that is defaulted later on with the death of another female character to bolster the turning of one of our characters to the dark side (or in this case, the good side that does bad things because that is the only way we solve problems these days).
Mostly devoid of any actual plot and meaningful nuanced characters, Vikram takes the quite elderly now, Kamal Haasan, and makes him a slightly portly mean killing machine. Almost every instance is repeated enough to be predictable and the movie runs on a clean guaranteed-to-succeed formula. Secondary but very much suited for the primary role is Fahadh Faazil who in recent years has garnered significant attention with his plethora of roles all different and eccentric in their own ways. While he has an unmistakably strong presence in the movie, the first 1 hour is him just bobbing back and forth looking for clues. Clues to some serial killer behavior and which is completely aimless as it is very obvious just what has transpires and what will transpire. Fahadh could've been used better but he is overshadowed by Kamal Haasan quite a bit.
The action is just abysmal. Flashy and barely sensible. At one point an agent decides to use forks as their weapon of choice rather than the hundreds of machetes lying around them dropped by those who were victims of the forks given. Kamal Haasan takes hits left and right but never budges meanwhile the enemies take one punch to the chest and are down for the count. This disparity where it seems like what powers the main character is his own will is ridiculous upon inspection and only adds to the haphazardly injected sub-plot of some magical drug pill that makes Vijay Sethupati superhuman for a few seconds. There is an element of vigilantes who replicate a "No killing rule... except for the ones we want to kill" combined with a story for vengeance that robs any underlying positive messages that the audience might want to take back.
Surprisingly, after 3 whole paragraphs of ranting, I can't say I wanted to stop watching Vikram. It is a movie so typical in its execution and usage of actors, I can't even be mad. Because when all is said and done, it works! Goddamnit, the music, and sound design are extremely catchy. The action while hilarious most of the time is still slashy and satisfying to watch and our criticism of it can only be so far-reaching as admitting that we can be quite pretentious when asked about our preferences to what kind of action we generally prefer. Would I watch Vikram again? Hell no. It is way too long and got in the way of my study prep. Do I regret watching it? Not really, no. It is one of my guilty pleasures. What can I say.
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