Lokesh Kanagaraj’s crime thriller also stars Fahadh Faasil and Vijay Sethupathi.
This is just the beginning, Vikram (Kamal Haasan) says at the point at which the interval card flashes on the screen. Right he is. Vikram, a former undercover agent who leads a vigilante group that targets drug traffickers, is used to issuing commands and having them obeyed. The 173-minute Tamil film named after him obeys, being almost entirely prologue for its pre-interval section. Well over an hour is devoted to the mystery of just who Vikram is. Hot on his trail are government investigator Amar (Fahadh Faasil) and druglord Santhanam (Vijay Sethupathi), who is missing a vital consignment and is being harassed by his unseen boss Rolex. Writer-director Lokesh Kanagaraj brings to a routine crime thriller both the flourish he displayed in his 2019 Tamil hit Kaithi and his skill with moulding movie stars to his vision (apart from the three A-listers, there’s an electric cameo by a fourth). Kanagaraj’s Vikram, which has also been dubbed in Hindi, is part of a “Kaithi universe”.
