Director: Ranjit Jeyakodi
Cast: Vijay Sethupathi, Sundeep Kishan, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar
It’s odd to notice how quickly we start comparing Michael to the two KGF films, even though the basic plot line bears few similarities. At the outset, both films are set partly in Mumbai and show the rise in ranks of an orphan who is as fearless as he is reckless. Both films also depend heavily on the emotions of this boy’s unending love for his mother and hopes that this will create vulnerability in a character who is as indestructible as a tank. But beyond this basic framework, it’s Michael’s lack of visual originality that leaves you with the feeling that you’re watching a pirated theatre print of the Kannada blockbuster, that too on a broken mobile phone screen.
To begin with, it’s impossible to look at Michael as an original Tamil film. Agreed that it was always sold as a bi-lingual, but you expect better from a film in which most members of the cast and crew belong to the Tamil industry. You find glaring mismatches in the dialogue delivery and this is made worse when the film itself lacks any kind of demographic specificity. Apart from the establishing shots, we are forced to believe that a scene is set in Bombay only because a title card tells you it is. The locations, the extras or the production design never achieve authenticity and you have to keep reminding yourself that the story has shifted from Bombay to Delhi and then back to Bombay again.
