Master Review

Master Review: Disappointing Lecture

RATING: 2.75/5

The biggest Pongal release, Master, starring Vijay and Vijay Sethupathi clashing horns, with the ever experimental Lokesh Kanagaraj wielding the megaphone, has generated a lot of hype. Let’s see how the movie turned out to be.

Story:

Bhavani (Vijay Sethupathi) is someone who controls most of the lorries in Chennai, and does heinous acts such as murders and settlements using rowdy kids from the juvenile detention center he grew up in, feeding drugs and booze into them. Frustrated, the heads at the juvenile center’s school call JD (Vijay), an alcoholic professor who supports students and often gets into brawls for them, to teach at the school. What happens when JD comes to the school and finds the kids, how JD and Bhavani clash against each other, and what happens next forms the rest of the story.

Performances:

Despite making a mess out of the movie, Kanagaraj succeeds in showing Thalapathy Vijay in an all-rounded light. Vijay does really well in his role, be it the swagger he brings into the proceedings or the fights, and hits a peak with his emotional performance. But the real show-stealer is Vijay Sethupathi, getting the best role in his career after Vikram Vedha. A role written really well and with almost every shade to it, including dark humour and cruel intensity, Vijay Sethupathi rocks the show and makes us heavily interested in the movie everytime he comes on. A true reminder of why he’s known as one of the best actors in India today. Malavika Mohanan gets a role that allows her to emote in a few scenes, one she does well in. Arjun Das is great as always with his natural ferocity. Shantanu Bhagyaraj and Andrea Jeremiah have small roles that do not make an impact. The rest of the actors do not make an impact.

Writing/ Direction:

Lokesh Kanagaraj as a writer goes the commercial route, very surprisingly, and forms a story that is shortly put, routine. Kanagaraj loses his writing style, and like all Vijay directors in the past few years, writes a script that is routine with mass elements for the star. The core point of the story, taken from Korean movie Silenced, is relatively new, but Kanagaraj modifies to make it more run-of-the-mill. His writing is also very routine and predictable, as the entire plot becomes clear after 20 minutes of the movie. Kanagaraj, unlike his other movies, formats the movie as a mass entertainer that doesn’t have any inner meaning, staying on the surface. What’s even more shocking is that Kanagaraj adds unneeded heroism elements for Vijay in his story that follow the normal commercial template, particularly unnecessary fights and turns in the movie. Ultimately, what salvages the writing is the characterization of Vijay Sethupathi, which is stamp Lokesh Kanagaraj. It’s unlike anything we’ve seen in cinema for a while, with his character and characterization giving the fresh angle to the story and helping the proceedings not be too routine. Despite Kanagaraj’s writing avoiding unneeded comedy elements, ultimately as a writer this is Kanagaraj’s weakest and most routine script by far, succumbing to Vijay’s star power and writing a script that doesn’t have his signature flair.

As a director, Kanagaraj starts off well but gets weighed down by the routine script as well, eventually faltering in his director irreparably and leaving Master as a mediocre fare. Kanagaraj’s screenplay is in a word, inconsistent. The movie, with a runtime of 2 hr 59 minutes, has a pace that is very slow as Kanagaraj takes his time to get through things. He starts his screenplay off very well, introducing a wide variety of elements and slowly elaborating on each one to add some weight to the connections he applies later. The screenplay doesn’t have many highs to keep the audience on the edge of their seat, but it is positioned well to keep the audience interested in the beginning, with some scenes written well and some scenes written well enough to not disrupt the flow of the movie. Later on in the movie, Kanagaraj’s screenplay takes a huge hit. Unlike his last movies, Kanagaraj doesn’t have a strong script helping him get through weakly written scenes, so when the weakly written scenes come, the screenplay makes the movie even worse due to the thin storyline. The screenplay, especially in the latter half, becomes muddled and confusing, with elements flying from nowhere and scenes becoming too illogical, almost solely meant to hype up Vijay’s star image. The events happening on screen have no correlation with the ones happening before; there isn’t a uniform flow of events that ties the movie together, with just random mass fights and scenes diving into the movie. The screenplay ends up playing spoilsport, as the audience loses interest in the movie and even gets slightly confused. The narration is also a bummer, as it stays flat for most of the movie; despite the audience not getting bored initially, there aren’t many high moments barring a few scenes. As the movie goes on, the narration also goes haywire as many threads remain in open air. First half of the movie is actually good, as Kanagaraj formats the movie as a commercial moment with signature Lokesh Kanagaraj touches. The first 20 minutes of the movie is brand Lokesh Kanagaraj as the characterization of Vijay Sethupathi is introduced through a flashback with raw and rustic visuals , done brilliantly to raise expectations on the movie itself. The film then progresses on to the entry of Vijay and the college scenes, which are written quite predictably but positioned well due to the screenplay, something that keeps the movie going during this time. The screenplay allows the proceedings to never get boring despite flat narration and dull pace, as Vijay and Sethupathi do well to help the proceedings stay interesting during this time and keep the viewers hooked. The commercial storyline is seen clearly in these scenes of the movie and becomes quite predictable as well; yet, the screenplay is positioned quite well, with Kanagaraj asserting his stamp through Sethupathi, while Vijay’s scenes are commercial and help the story move. The songs here are very good to hear and help the story. The pre-interval and interval scenes are marvelous, as Kanagaraj shows what he can do here. Aided by Thalapathy’s terrific performance and a scintillating BGM, the screenplay and writing here is very effective and leaves a strong impact, raising the expectations for the second half. The second half, however, is a major disappointment as Kanagaraj not only loses his style of taking and turns it too commercial, but also muddles the screenplay and leaves the movie as a mess. After a good start to the second half with the Quit Pannuda song, the movie becomes Vijay fan service with too many Vijay elevating scenes such as the Kabaddi scene that have no impact and aren’t consistent with his characterization, resulting in intense lag being generated from the proceedings. The movie’s runtime starts to show here; at 3 hrs, the movie moves along very slowly, and as more unneeded scenes, comedical and serious, fill up the screen, the movie becomes boring and extremely laggy with a flat narration. The screenplay also becomes very erratic at this time, as Kanagaraj loses control of the proceedings with random commercial elements coming from the middle of nowhere. To make things worse, Kanagaraj introduces a social message angle to the movie to, not only distorting the proceedings further and extending the lag but driving in the unoriginality of the movie even more. With the screenplay going haywire, the movie doesn’t become coherent anymore; rather it turns out to be a big, predictable mess of events without a proper flow and compelling storytelling. The pre-climax scenes are frankly a joke; they become starkly illogical and extend the lag and dull narration. Ultimately, the movie gets some footing in the climax, largely because it’s the first confrontation we see, and the climax fight whilst routine is done well, the Thalapathy shirtless angle adding to the impact. Overall, this is such a disappointing venture from Kanagaraj who is known for pushing the boundaries. He ultimately makes a movie that is commercial to the core with a messy screenplay, plenty of lag, and unnecessary tribute elements. He shows his stamp in a few places, particularly with Sethupathi, but ultimately falls drastically short.

Technicalities:

Anirudh Ravichander is such a blessing for the movie. What magic he has spun! His songs are great, despite the lag, and picturized well, while his BGM is just amazing. He has experimented with many genres here, even Jamaican pop for the intro BGM, and it’s just marvelous. Cinematography by Sathyan Sooryan is also great, as the visuals are sparkling on the big screen and exude richness to the movie. Editing is very poor, as 30 minutes at least could have been easily edited from the movie overall. The runtime is a huge negative, and the lag makes it worse. Production values from XB Film Creators are rich. Dialogues are written well.

Final Verdict:

To sum it up, Master is a disappointment as it comes from one of South India’s top directors, who crumbled under Vijay’s star image and produced a commercial movie that suffers on many levels. Positives are Vijay and Vijay Sethupathi (performances and characterization), Anirudh’s music and BGM, good first half, pre-interval and interval scenes, cinematography, and climax. On the flip side, routine and predictable writing, a messy and inconsistent screenplay, directionless second half, dull narration, slow pace, and lag throughout the movie hamper the movie significantly. Overall, this Master proves to be a very ineffective professor!