Yaanai Movie Review: An action drama that does what it sets out to do

Language: Tamil

I don’t know if I can call Yaanai a comeback film for Arun Vijay. But I can say that loudly for the movie’s director, Hari. He can finally heave a sigh of relief. The new action drama, which is releasing four years after the ridiculous _Saamy Square_, does what it sets out to do. It’s not a return to form for the brainchild behind the Singam series. But then, what’s his original form?

Hari is known for making masala movies that feel like they’re running on adrenaline. Although there isn’t much of that going on here, there are some places where his sparks flutter. And part of that credit has to go to Vijay, for he’s not just the poster boy for muscles and forthrightness, he also plays a character that sort of speaks to the audience directly.

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Ravi (Vijay) gets down from his car and walks up to a grave and pays his respects in order to build a bridge for reconciliation in one of the opening scenes of Yaanai. And about half a minute later, the prime antagonist makes his entry from another corner of the screen and engages in a staring game with Ravi and the others. Everybody looks at everybody and that leads to the rise of tension in the air.

Lingam (Ramachandra Raju) is in no mood to shake hands with Ravi and let bygones be bygones. He wants revenge, a blood sacrifice – you know how this works in Hari’s world. Or even in the world of Tamil cinema for that matter where the hero and his nemesis share a dirty history. Right from this setup, Hari tells you whom you should root for. The answers are right there: Lingam is very bad and Ravi is very good.

But the tussle between the good and bad man doesn’t happen until another hour. Lingam disappears for vast stretches in the middle. And Ravi is left to deal with small fish. But the small fish also matter. He’s the youngest among four brothers and, so, is loved by all the women and children in his family. This is a joint family that I’m talking about. I couldn’t keep up with the number of kids in the house, honestly. And a large family doesn’t always mean a happy family. There are insults wherever he goes, and he digests them all because he’s a good man, because he’s a family man.

Who’s a family man anyway? Wasn’t the protagonist of _Maamanithan_, Radhakrishnan ( Vijay Sethupathi), also a family man? He runs away from his wife and kids when he finds himself at the bottom of a scam. But he still makes sure that his hard-earned money reaches them every month through his friend. In Yaanai, Ravi doesn’t pack his bags and go to a neighboring state in the middle of the night. Rather, he simply beats his attackers to a pulp and wins the argument. The cops, too, listen to him without missing a word, as he’s rich.

Perhaps, the biggest drawback of Yaanai is its comedy track. Jimmy ( Yogi Babu), as Ravi’s sidekick, is funny. But when he roams around the town passing silly comments and eating biryani for five rupees, it becomes a little tiring. The standalone jokes aren’t fresh and since Babu isn’t paired with actors who can match his verbal marathon, they come across as unnecessary and foolish. Vivek did a great job in Saamy almost two decades earlier. But we’ve moved on now. We need comedy that flows along with the storyline and not the stinky bombs that stray away from the herd.

The insults that I mentioned above mainly drop from Ravi’s brother (portrayed by Samuthirakani). This brother is the kind of guy who judges the people around him with regard to the castes they belong to. It doesn’t come as a surprise then when his daughter falls in love with a Muslim. Ravi, too, is besotted with a woman who’s not from his caste – Malar (Priya Bhavani Shankar) is a Christian. And that’s how Hari covers the holy trinity. But Yaanai doesn’t shoot down casteism.

Ravi doesn’t hold a mic and gives lectures about the wrongs that are spreading through our country. He doesn’t make overt political statements, either. His conversations and confrontations appear more like a squabble in a forest – the outsiders won’t get it. But it’s still a step forward. However, the casteist, who’s also a wife-beater, gets away with almost everything he does. Is that a typical representation of an Indian marriage? It’s sort of a punch in the gut to see that some things will never change, on and off the screen.

Love alone doesn’t win at the end of the day in Yaanai. Dysfunctional families that remain functional during a malfunction also win here.

Rating: 3 (out of 5 stars)

Yaanai is playing in cinemas

Karthik Keramalu is a writer. His works have been published in The Bombay Review, The Quint, Deccan Herald and Film Companion, among others. 

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