You may find a hundred issues with Vishal’s new action movie Laththi but a shortage of ideas is certainly not one. Starting with the concept of him playing an ordinary constable, that too facing suspension, there are efforts in every stage to give you the feeling that you’re watching a clever cop movie. When we first meet constable Muruganathan (Vishal), he’s enjoying familial bliss, waking up early to kiss both his son and wife good morning. It’s the kind of obvious mirth that shouts the dangers that lay ahead for this family. He’s a cop after all, so you imagine that either his wife is going to get killed or that his son might get kidnapped, perhaps by a villain seeking revenge. But no, this is not that movie. Even the obvious comes in the form of a new idea and what this does is present us with an assembly line of plot points that are either a hit or a miss. This makes the film ridiculously incoherent, but at least they’re constantly trying.
I blame/thank Lokesh Kanagaraj for this departure from template action. So when Muruganathan’s son is thrown right back into action much later, we also get a ‘concept’ that is meant to add to the urgency. Instead of simply presenting the task of safely transporting this boy from place A to place B, the film gives him a breathing problem which requires that he gets his inhaler at the earliest. But when you choose to follow up a scene of a boy suffocating with that of timelapse that turns day into night, you sense that the film has no clue about what to do with that idea.