Ram Venkat Srikar
This ultra-violent film aims for nuance but ends up as an assault to the senses. Hari’s latest directorial makes you ask only one question: “How much violence is too much violence?”
Priya Bhavani Shankar’s Mallika casually drops a rather philosophical line. “There is no definition for good and bad,” she says, as she realises that the film’s eponymous hero (Vishal), dreaded as a violent gangster in Chitthoor, comes to her rescue when she is attacked by some violent goons.
We see one act of violence, a police officer being attacked and murdered early in the film and the same incident is shown through a different perspective later, to tell us that this incident plays a bigger role in the story.
It’s not nuance or thematic subtext that we expect when we walk into a Hari film; it’s the mass, it’s the relentless pace and how his protagonists use both their brawn and brain to overpower the bad guy.
What’s striking about Rathnam is how it subverts the romantic angle with a twist that might have made Freud resurrect from his grave if not dealt the right way. It’s a very thin line and the film trudges it beautifully.
With all the thoughts it wanted to blend, Rathnam could have been a lot more than what it ended up being. If only it was more about Rathnam and less about rathham.