Maaran movie review: Dhanush, Smruthi Venkat’s film is a complete disaster-Entertainment News , Firstpost
Maaran wants to be an intelligent, engaging thriller but ends up being lazy and trite.
In the early minutes of Maaran, Swetha (Smruthi Venkat) prays for her brother to land a job. “My brother is very lazy. He thinks he is a genius, but he is a fool. He can get a job only with your intervention,” she says, looking at the deities on the wall. One could say the same about the film. Maaran wants to be an intelligent, engaging thriller but ends up being lazy and trite.
Maaran has Dhanush playing an investigative journalist. He is particular that he will only write the truth; his words should bring about change. Just like his father Sathyamoorthi, who was also an investigative journalist. Sathyamoorthi was killed because of a scoop he published, But the experience has only made Maaran more determined to take the path his father did. All of this is fine, just the fact that no one in this universe actually speaks like a journalist. When Sathyamoorthi comes with a massive scoop, he is stopped by three colleagues who only warn him of the dangers of publishing the scoop. One colleague even asks why he doesn’t shift to writing gossip. Maybe a close friend or associate can suggest something like this, but for every person in a media organisation to speak like this is plain laughable. The biggest problem with Maaran is that the characters spit information in incongruous chunks, with no concern for authenticity or realism.
With a wafer-thin premise to begin with, the contrived writing only adds to the long list of problems. There are several ‘twists’ in Maaran, but none of them make much sense.
A kidnapper holds a girl hostage at a fixed place. The police are in place. Yet the man manages to push the girl from the higher floors of the mall, throw a bag full of money into the atrium. So what are the police doing? The smaller things also don’t make sense. It’s a universe where media companies give access to their Twitter accounts to non-employees and hire based on tweet wars. It’s a universe where nurses treat patients directly at hospitals and don’t even allow them to see a doctor.
It’s a universe where ransom calls are made directly to police stations. And it’s a universe where you can even find two different people with matching DNA. It’s a universe where a villain says he killed someone, only to contradict himself in the next moment. It’s a universe where a brother learns to fight to protect his sister but doesn’t think of getting her to learn self-defense as well. The list is pretty long.
Dhanush is a great actor. We have seen that on multiple occasions over the years. But in Maaran, he seems lackadaisical. This would probably be his weakest performance in a long time. And the lesser said about Tara (Malavika Mohanan), the better. Maaran’s idea of a cool female photojournalist is that she should wear a cap at all times, and chew gum. While it’s not feasible to expect every female character to be inte Maaran pushes the boundaries. Tara keeps her whiskey on the floor of a flight, and in the same breath, calls herself brilliant. So much for being smart.
Rating: 1.5/5
Ashameera Aiyappan is a film journalist who writes about Indian cinema with a focus on South Indian films.
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