There's a hint of purposeful suspense in the proceedings that lead to some of the most amusing scenes in Vikram Vedha. Yet the overlong, plotholes-ridden screenplay wreaks havoc to what would have been an otherwise tight watch. This neo-noir thriller about righteousness has two people at the center of its conflict - a hard cop and a similarly hard gangster - both of whom believe that what they have done (killed people) and are doing (killing more people) is justified. It is when their philosophies chafe against each other that they realize that they may not be actually right. Watching Vikram Vedha unfold as the gangster (Vijay Sethupathi) takes his adversary (Madhavan) back to his life through three stories is highly engaging, but somewhere in the middle in an attempt to look intelligent it slips and falls on the ground flat. The convoluted story then gasps for breath so as to further surprise its expecting audience - one twist after another. The huge number of characters - who dance in the screen thanks to the non-linear narrative - help Vikram Vedha don the hat of a master thriller, but when you disassemble it down to the nail, it ends up looking like those cop-gangster stories that you have seen countless times in Tamil and Malayalam cinema. What it does differently is talk about ethics and legitimacy in the fields of law breaking and enforcement. Vikram Vedha scores more points because of the fantastic performances by Sethupathi and Medhavan, but as a film, it's just about one notch higher than average. TN.
Review of Vikram Vedha
