Mahaan Review: Excruciating Narration Plays Spoil-Sport!

Written and directed by Karthik Subbaraj, Mahaan brings together the father-son duo ‘Chiyaan’ Vikram and Dhruv Vikram in a dream combo with Santhosh Narayan’s music. The film also has an ensemble cast including Bobby Simha, Simran, Sananth for supporting roles. Well, the idea of bringing together one of the prominent star parents and kids is applaudable, but the ‘Petta’ director squandered the opportunity by missing on to craft a solid screenplay for an already weak plot.

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Mahaan follows the story of a commerce teacher living an unsatisfied life following Gandhi’s principle which his father had preached him since childhood. He eagers to live carefree like Nehru for one day, on his birthday but it turns fateful for him and the Gandhian turns into King of Good times. The rest of the 160 minutes narrates his growth as a mob boss and how his blood tries to topple him down.

Mahaan enjoys the privilege of having the versatile actor fight his son on screen. The ‘National Award’ winning actor raises the bar for his son to match and Dhruv Vikram elegantly equals with his father’s persona and acting skills. It sure is a delight for the fans of the star to watch them together. Karthik Subbaraj succeeds in utilizing the duo’s adroitness and has made Mahaan rich in performances and the supporting cast too does their assigned roles to near perfection.

For the runtime of 160 minutes, Karthik Subbaraj fails to utilize it to neatly sketch the characters and bring them together in the latter half of Mahaan. Somehow, past the initial thirty minutes, the film wanders for no reason before coming to the interval segment. The director’s intention to capture the life of an epigone-turned dissenter is littered with scenes that aren’t fresh.

He makes use of conventional methods to portray the transition, which seems like a cakewalk for the hero. The unavailability of newly harvested ideas makes it lackluster even before Dhruv Vikram could be introduced on screen. So, for a good forty minutes, Subbaraj offered run-of-the-mill scenes to keep us grossly engaged before the interval scene which turned out to be a bang on the face-off between the father-son with scintillating background score from Santhosh Narayanan.

Runtime was never an issue for a Karthik Subbaraj film. For his films are always on the lengthier side. The main problem with Mahaan is with the director’s sudden inability to engage the audience with intriguing scenes. Post interval, with a brief introduction to Dhruv Vikram, again the film sets to wander and takes us on a long path to a never-ending climax. Again, the penultimate scenes of the film dragged us to a slow death. For a film that heavied on two big names, it had a toned-down ending and I felt like the director suddenly considered the character to be lamebrained because what is considered a “master-stroke,” or an “unexpected” twist felt mind-numbing.

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Overall, Mahaan suffers from the own hands of the director’s dilemma. He is confused about whether to establish himself as a filmmaker with individual ideas or join the bandwagon of the directors who voice the voiceless. His last outing with Dhanush for Netflix had him voicing the Lankan Tamil’s and illegal immigrants. Now, he preaches the Gandhian philosophy and fails to do it in an easy to comprehend or viable manner. Had he focused on making the conventional cat-mouse brawl engaging with captivating and thought-provoking scenes, Mahaan would have been irresistible.

‘Mahaan’ Rating – 2/5

Images via Prime Video