Vishwaroopam (2013)

Director: Kamal Haasan

Story: Kamal Haasan, Atul Tiwari

Cast: Kamal Haasan, Rahul Bose, Pooja Kumar, Andrea Jeremiah 

Music: Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy

Time: 149 minutes

Bottom-line: Good, not great; in many ways a welcome break 

One of the most controversial films of recent times, Kamal Haasan’s Vishwaroopam is considered by many to be of Hollywood standards. But for me, it is just not the usual Indian film. For those who just want to experience a lot of thrill, the film delivers. However, many others have criticized the script for bring shallow, with very poor dialogues. Kamal stars in his own film, with Rahul Bose, Pooja Kumar and Andrea Jeremiah playing the supporting roles.

Kamal Haasan as Vishwanath

In New York, Dr. Nirupama (Pooja Kumar) is a nuclear oncologist, while her husband, Vishwanath a.k.a Viz (Kamal) is a dance teacher. She likes her boss more than Viz, and to make sure that Viz has no secrets, she hires someone to spy on him. The spy is killed by a terrorist gang led by Omar (Bose), who traces him to Nirupama. They capture Nirupama and Viz, who escape after Viz has a fight with the terrorists, and kills most of them. Nirupama now realizes that her husband is more than just a dance teacher. We see that Omar and Viz have a common past, as both of them were at the same Al-Qaeda camp, in 2002. The rest of the film tells us about Viz’s real identity, and whether or not he manages to stop Omar from executing his plan to destroy the city. 

Rahul Bose as Omar

In many ways the film is different from the usual Tamil films. There is only one song shown on screen (OMG indeed!), which too is pretty useless; there is no fistfight between the hero and villain; the story is told in somewhat non-linear narrative; the action scenes are indeed better. The story is slow to start, but kicks on after the warehouse fight, where Viz escapes from the terrorists. Many scenes that take place in the Al-Qaeda camp were boring, as not so many scenes are required to tell us the background of Viz’s real nature. (Spoiler alert) There are few loopholes here and there, and the ending is somewhat dumb. I mean, after all that running and escaping, I would liked it better if Kamal had ended the story with this film, instead of saying, “Either I should die, or Omar should,” and showing a trailer of the prophesied Vishwaroopam 2 (seriously, what is this? Harry Potter? What is all this ‘either me dying or him dying’ stuff?).

Kamal Haasan, with Pooja Kumar, who plays Nirupama

The acting by Kamal is good, but compared to his good films, this is nothing. Pooja Kumar has done a very poor job, often overacting. Most of her dialogues are also useless (and on that topic, there are only about 30-40 lines of good dialogue in the film; most of them are poor). Rahul Bose has done well, and Andrea Jeremiah has done a decent job. The song Unnai Kaanadhu in the beginning is not really needed, though it is melodious. The background score is excellent in the film. 

Andrea Jeremiah as Ashmita

The action scenes have been filmed well. The warehouse fight is one of the best scenes in the film. Yet, throughout the film, there is lots of violence, at places quite gory too. Kamal Haasan tries to become Quentin Tarantino, and perhaps this is one reason why people said that the film was of Hollywood standards, for it introduced a new level of violence in Tamil cinema. The violence, along with the portrayal of Muslims in the film, created widespread controversy, so much so that Kamal thought of leaving Tamil Nadu because of this. Theatres were attacked, and the release of the film was postponed for a long time. So, well, if you think you are going to be religiously affected, don’t watch the film. If want to watch the film with a light heart, then you can do so. 

To sum up, Kamal Haasan’s spy thriller Vishwaroopam provides thrills and entertainment, but has a lot of controversial issues. Tons of violence and of course, the way Muslims have been shown in the film have led to the banning of the film in many places. Kamal’s acting is good, Pooja Kumar’s acting is poor and that of the others is okay. I say again, the story is not great, nor is the film, but I liked it mainly (and perhaps only) because it was an attempt to create something different.

My Rating: 2.5/5