Walter movie review: Sibi Sathyaraj's 'super-cop thriller' suffers from a wafer-thin plotline with limited twists

Language: Tamil One of the most popular genres of Tamil cinema is the 80’s and 90’s super cop films popularised by Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan. The cop is a one-man army and also a crusader, who takes on the corrupt system and brings about positive change. Every superstar loves doing such larger-than-life roles. In the last few years, even the character of the cop has undergone change, with more shades of grey being introduced and recently Rajinikanth went back to playing a super cop in Darbar after decades. In Walter, named probably after his father Sathyaraj’s iconic 1993 cop movie Walter Vetrivel, Sibi Sathyaraj plays the title role of the cop. In Tamil cinema, sons of popular stars always make films with titles that have a connect with their dads’ super hits. The 2020 Walter is a typical Kollywood cop movie, with a wafer-thin storyline with hardly any twists or turns. The title role of the cop suits Sibi with his hunk looks perfectly. But the screenplay and pacing make it a tiring watch. [caption id=“attachment_8148021” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]  A still from Walter. Image from YouTube[/caption] Walter (Sibi Sathyaraj) is an honest duty-bound cop, who will even do an ‘encounter killing’ to eliminate the bad guys. He is an ACP, stationed in the small temple town of Kumbakonam in south Tamil Nadu. The town is ruled by the local MLA and powerful health minister Easwara Moorthy (Bava Chelladurai). He calls the shots along with his cunning daughter (Riythvika) and her ruthless businessman husband (Abhishek). The MLA is under pressure when new-born babies go missing from hospitals. Walter is put in charge of the investigation. Meanwhile, due to political machinations in Chennai, the chief minister wants Easwaramoorthy to retire on health grounds and hand over power to his right hand man Balu (Samuthirakani), which obviously doesn’t suit him. Moorthy with the help of the police gets Walter to eliminate Balu, who has some criminal cases against him in an encounter killing. The rest of the film is about the link between the enemies of the cop and the kingpin behind the disappearance of the babies. The story is not convincing and the writing is confusing. The narrative keeps on shifting between a police investigation and a medical thriller. There are far too many red herrings in the plot and the big reveal in the end leaves you exhausted. Too many songs are thrust into the narration, including an unnecessary one under a shower! The heroine seems to be there for the sake of having a female lead, for the mandatory romantic track, to pass off the movie as a commercial entertainer. In the second half, the character just disappears. The two main villains are stereotypically loud and predictable. Walter does not live up to expectations and as a cop movie is a letdown. Rating: **