The villain, the man who wants to build a pan-Indian pipeline to control all the water is Rathore — a name and an actor, Chunky Pandey, pulled from the North, because such is South Indian villainy. He is an advisor to the government, and with the help of Chinese moles within the administration, has convinced everyone that this is a good idea — even the International Court of Justice, at the Hague. There is something meaty here, the idea of a corporate entity so monopolising, so powerful, so close to political power, that it subverts justice in favour of profits. Sounds familiar?
We are told Sardar — with a stitched white beard and sagging skin that can only be described as prosthetic — has 8 passports, and speaks 24 languages, a fact that is flung at us without needing any additional scene expressing this, showing us that, indeed, this is a man of many tongues. We are told that he was trained by Rathore, and even this is a fact we must forcefully swallow because the film isn’t passing us the, ahem, “water” to make it more palatable. Chunky Pandey’s frame is so lithe, his acting so cartoonishly menacing that it is impossible to see how Rathore imparted either brawn or brain to Sardar. Have we forgotten how to write good villains?
The second half is a quick, almost reckless recap of Sardar’s life, where we are introduced to his wife (Rajisha Vijayan) — but just like with Shalini here, too, is a love that is established already before we lay eyes on it; that the two have known each other for decades. Perhaps Mithran just does not see how their love is essential to this story except to create biological links across generations. That’s fair. This is, afterall, a film that is about a father and son. Why layer it with desire? It also allows Karthi to flex the acting muscles he excels at — self assured bravado — without letting him slip up, as he usually does when it comes to expressing love.