Vettaiyan: The Hunter Review: Rana Daggubati is tall and strapping. He is the antithesis of Rajinikanth and Fahadh Faasil.
Cops and robbers. The staple action film fare. They offer little elbow room for originality to screenwriters. Can you really expect much more than this from Vettaiyan: The Hunter? It’s a Tamil police drama dubbed into Hindi.
The extent of appeal for Rajinikanth was bound to pull a crowd.
Vettaiyan, the work of writer-director TJ Gnanavel introduces new themes. On the whole, the film remembered for vivid flavours despite being marred by some patchy pacing.
Gnanavel’s work reflects urgent questions. If Vettaiyan: The Hunter gets preachy in places, there are some themes relevant and provocative.

It sports the usual chestnuts found in a Rajinikanth vehicle. It attempts, however, to give them an ethical core. It seeks to create a context. A Tamil Nadu Police superintendent makes tough choices. They make him a ruthless encounter specialist.
Cops and crooks have been staples of action movies for long.
Vettaiyan: The Hunter is a Hindi remake of a Tamil police drama, and its writing is less creative. It rides on the mass appeal of Rajinikanth.
Now, TJ Gnanavel weaves old and new through Vettaiyan.
The film is not without issues. Pace is a bit uneven and focus a bit unclear, yet it will be remembered.
It springs from urgent questions and a fearless desire to articulate them. The actor is sometimes too preachy here, but some points do hit home-Vettaiyan: The Hunter.
It includes typical Rajinikanth elements but strives for more meaning from it. This leads to a Tamil Nadu Police superintendent becoming a ruthless killer.
SP Athiyan of Kanniyakumari: after every murder, he says, “Aim and you will catch.” It’s his motto every time he shoots.

But, here’s the gimmick-he never misses, or so he believes.
Justice Satyadev (Amitabh Bachchan) has an altogether different idea. He abhors extra-judicial killings. He believes in a view that is opposite to SP Athiyan’s ways of governing. The two worlds come crashing in Vettaiyan.
No sympathy for the men, declares the cop. As a legal expert brought on at the beginning of the movie, he suggests that further lawlessness will not mitigate lawlessness. He was speaking to young policemen about “enabling human rights through law.” When was the last time “policing” and “human rights” appeared together in a sentence in an Indian movie??
Vettaiyan: The Hunter brings in a megastar from each of the Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi film industries. Of course, Fahadh Faasil, who loves playing unpredictable roles, presents before Rajinikanth. He is a smooth, crafty ex-conman, now the hero’s top informant.
Tall, strapping Rana Daggubati is the physical antithesis of both Rajinikanth and Fahadh Faasil.
The character he plays is morally opposite to SP Athiyan and his troubleshooter, Patrick (Faasil).

And then there is Bachchan, booming voice, at his wise. That’s in a film about systemic tyranny. It released all over the country a day before his 82nd birthday. What is more, it marks his onscreen reunion with Rajinikanth, 33 years after Hum.
The ladies in Vettaiyan do get their share of the action, nobody more so than Ritika Singh as a rookie cop who learns the ropes from the best in the business. Manju Warrier plays SP Athiyan’s wife, a woman who does a live cooking show but is a terrific markswoman to boot. She demonstrates her skills with the gun when thugs sneak up on her while she sleeps at home.
Another key protagonist is the schoolteacher (Dushara Vijayan). One of such actresses who did films for Pa Ranjith and Dhanush in the last three years. Most of the storyline of Vettaiyan, of course, revolves around her choices.
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Beyond the heavy load of action, this film is also similar to Jailer in many ways. But Vettaiyan is a far cry from the blockbuster that dropped last year. What’s the difference? It has Rajinikanth playing full “action star” and dispensing chaos and death quite easily.
In Jailer, the superstar once again is playing the role of the puppeteer who brings on violent strikes against the baddies. Here, he dons the cloak of a one-man squad and dives headlong into the action himself.

Rajini fans would like that, but he would have done more justice by playing his age.
Gnanavel’s script with B. Kiruthika does everything that a script condemning the malpractices of police can do. It also touches upon more serious issues. These include class and caste bias in policing, unequal education, and corruption among protectors.
For the first half hour, Vettaiyan is utterly obsessed with outwitting Rajinikanth’s fans. Then the pace accelerates. It stays fast till the break. First, he fights off some goons. Then comes a gruesome rape and murder. This ruins SP Athiyan’s clean sheet.
After the break, the story of Athiyan changes into speeches about major concerns in justice. They do not take time to wonder about Athiyan’s tactics. He hunts for villains who he thinks are aligning themselves with corrupt officials.
At some point SP Athiyan realizes he exceeds the boundaries of acceptable behavior.
This dejected son of the deserted woman never gave up his dream. Gnanavel, at Justice Satyadev’s suggestion, takes a job. A poor family wants to end their poverty through education. They seek his help to heal their future.
His film, “Jai Bhim,” raises the suffering of the deprived class of a discriminative society. Also, it shows the how hard it is to fight against an affluent-led system.
Gnanavel seeks something more than profits, though he employed the fan base of Rajnikanth. An education system needs to open up to where profits will not be the prime thing. Profits come second to serving mankind.