Sruthi Ganapathy Raman
What happens when a wimp is given the power to turn a warrior? This is the premise of Madonne Ashwin and Sivakarthikeyan’s Maaveeran. It is a lean and mean action-hero flick that, fully aware of its world and the star image it possesses, has ridiculous fun with the genre.
The filmmaker’s flair for treading the very thin line between the hilarious and serious is a known fact by now, and he masters this art with Maaveeran, keeping his sensibilities intact.
Sathya might get his dramatic transformation in the end, but it still happens on Madonne’s terms. The way the film couples the massiness that Sivakarthikeyan brings with the funny guy next door Adhu Idhu Edhu-charm that Sivakarthikeyan once brought to our television for years, is cleverly executed.
Madonne makes the wait from wimp to warrior sweeter by giving us a “comedy track.” Now, comedy tracks in action films have their own track record for being ridiculously out of place. But Yogi Babu’s presence weirdly coalesces with Madonne’s world that it almost becomes a source of comfort.
Sarita is especially brilliant in depicting the angst of having birthed a wimpish son, but also loving him despite projecting her own pitfalls of being a single parent onto him. While Aditi Shankar is a voice of reason in Sathya’s head, she could’ve done much more than just that in the film because she’s such an effortless presence on screen.
But somewhere in its — very understandable — obsession with its complicated hero, Maaveeran sort of overlooks the hundreds of other nameless folks in his community that make him who he is. Despite these cracks in Maaveran, it is Madonne’s vision to give Tamil audiences a pulpy yet meaningful version of the superhero that makes this film a commendable effort.