A year since its release, we look back at why Kaithi is a great example of how star vehicle movies can be made even without the usual cliché template sequences.
To start off, the most impressive thing in Kaithi was that the build-up to an introduction of a lead character was in line with the events of the movie. We generally see a forced introduction sequence for the stars in the movie and not for the characters.
It is impressive to see that a Lokesh Kanagaraj (director) has stuck to the point that unless there is utmost necessity for a character to be there in a scene or even in the whole arc of events, the character reveal before its cue would not do justice to the character itself. Dilli’s is probably one of the best introduction build-ups for a character.
The first half goes on with an intensity and pace quite similar to an Express train. The sequences keep building up the premise of the storyline brilliantly. At the end of first half, one would believe that the time works directly relative to the speed of the lorry that Dilli (Karthi) drives in the movie.
Cinematography by Sathyan Sooryan could probably be one of the best of the best works in recent times. The lightings and the shot settings were technically prominent to the nascent eye.
The eagle-eye view shots of the Lorry chases, the trap setting sequence with the Bamboo tree branches and the beer bottle attack sequences could not have been this perfect without Sathyan’s vision.
The technical aspects of cinematography was so strong that it elevated the quality of the movie to a completely different level altogether.
Editing by Philomin Raj has to be given an equal credit as well. Unless the editing is being done perfectly, we wouldn’t have got an intriguing and an immersive experience. Particularly, the first half had a lot of edge-of-the-seat moments, which heavily contributed to the screenplay using crisp editing. The action choreography during the fight sequences and the lorry chase sequences requires more than just a mention. Incredible choreography on the stunts.
Music director Sam CS was terrific with his background score. The habit of having a quality output from every department has indeed seeped into the music department as well. The background score and the sound design of the movie seems to have strengthened the movie in every aspect. Particularly, the placement of the old songs was just perfect, which was like an icing-on-the-cake thing to have such cute moments in some serious situations.
Karthi as an actor has grown manifold in the last few years and Kaithi gives Karthi a lot of scope to perform. The scenes involving his daughter brings out the best in him. His eyes speak what his lips cannot. The vulnerability that he shows during the scenes where he is being forced by the police is just brilliant. And in the action sequences, the vulnerability changes form into anger as the situations delay his meeting with his own daughter.
There are a couple more characters that stood out along with Karthi. It was good to see Naren back on the Tamil screens after a long time. His role of an honest cop (Bejoy) looked picture perfect for him, his performance was commendable. A memorable movie for Naren.
Arjun Dass as Anbu was terrific. The kind of ferocity he shows throughout the movie is just brilliant. Not to forget that his booming, Magizh Thirumeni kind of a voice comes as a surprise and delight as well. The scene where the students cry due to a loss of a friend, but he just laughs it off like a victory lapse brought out the ultimate “villain”-ism in his character.
Last but not the least, the character of Napoleon, played by George Maryan, should unanimously be listed as one of the best characters in recent times. The character starts off as a slightly feared person, with a vulnerability that George Maryan is capable of vending off easily. With this, he guards the Commissioner Office from a major attack.
There is this one “mass” scene for George Maryan, which fuels the intensity of the situation quite brilliantly and evokes the much needed hype for the final face-off.
However, the incredibly staggering premise that was set in the first half was just let off wandering a little in the Dilli parts in the second half. Dilli fighting off 15-20 goons felt a little recursive. But the George Maryan part of the half held its place strongly.
The climax felt a little too open-ended for the build-ups set for the character of Adaikalam (Harish Uthaman), but since the director had said that there is going to be a prequel to show how Dilli is linked to all of this, it was quite alright. However, if there had been a small premise set on what the prequel would offer, it would have been extraordinarily satisfying.
Remembering one such we had at the end of Viswaroopam 1. The connection between Wasim and Omar Bhai shown as a montage during the end credits set the premise of what to expect in the second part. Something similar would have made the movie entirely complete in all aspects.
In an interview with Film Companion’s Baradwaj Rangan, Lokesh emphasized on the fact that it was entirely possible to present a Star-vehicle movie without the clichéd template scenes, and he also confidently put across that a movie with technical brilliance in terms of vision and storytelling can achieve everything that the former would achieve with all the so-called required commercial elements in it.
Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru is one such example. It was almost an entirely content driven movie, ALMOST. The scenes involving Karthi and Rakul invariably slowed down the flow of the movie. The kind of compromise H. Vinoth had to make for this made the movie as just a commercial one with an incredibly great content. However, Lokesh Kanagaraj strictly stuck to what he wanted. He believed that a movie with no songs, no female leads, no flashbacks, not even flashback montages can achieve more than what it would if it had all these “template” things.
A similar idea sealed the success of his first film, Maanagaram, a movie that was well guarded from the commercial clichés of multi-story movies.
Kaithi makes way to a whole lot of opportunities for the young crop to draw a lot of inspiration from this. We are already seeing a lot of such thriller movies – Dhuruvangal 16, Vellai Pookal, Game Over, and many more, but Kaithi is an important movie to show the directors, producers and the actors that it is indeed possible to make a story driven movie with a touch of commercial elements infused into the screenplay.