<img style="float: left;" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2024/jul/Mayank-Shekhar-op_e.jpg" alt="Mayank Shekhar" width="150" height="83" />Maharaja is the warm, genteel actor Vijay Sethupathi&rsquo;s 50th film. We know this, not from IMDb, but from &ldquo;VJS 50&rdquo; splashed in the <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/what-to-make-of-ambani-wedding-23364564" target="_blank" rel="none noopener">film&rsquo;s trailer</a>, poster, opening credits!&nbsp;
I wonder if that number separately includes the Hindi and Tamil versions of Sriram Raghavan&rsquo;s equally smart, suspense-thriller, Merry Christmas (2024).&nbsp;
I watched both versions in a theatre, mildly bemoaning a missed opportunity. <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/ought-to-go-to-aravind-garu-no-23362309" target="_blank" rel="none noopener">Merry Christmas</a>, in Tamil, could&rsquo;ve so easily been set in Chennai (for the exterior sequences), with the same cast.&nbsp;
The story&rsquo;s roughly the same, anyway. It felt odd for characters to be interacting in Tamil, all over again, in Mumbai.
<img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2024/jul/Kurangu-Bommai_e.jpg" alt="Kurangu Bommai" width="1280" height="720" /> Kurangu Bommai
Almost as odd to find <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/just-how-they-went-for-the-kill-23359756" target="_blank" rel="none noopener">Anurag Kashyap</a> in Maharaja, mouthing words dubbed by someone else in Tamil, while even his lips don&rsquo;t sync with lines on screen, on occasion.&nbsp;
Which was okay for, say, a cameo in Loki&rsquo;s Leo (2023) for Kashyap (AK vs AK, Ghoomketu)&mdash;who&rsquo;s been quietly building a parallel acting career, along with a well-known filmography as director, of course.&nbsp;
Maharaja is ironically his first film to surpass Rs 100 crore in footfalls! Wherein Sethupathi plays the eponymous lead/hero&mdash;Kashyap as Selvam, is the <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/so-what-if-maharaj-is-maha-bore-23357149" target="_blank" rel="none noopener">main villain</a>. Nothing feels even slightly sloppy about the film, otherwise; written, directed by Vellore-born Nithilan Saminathan, 42.&nbsp;
I missed catching Maharaja at a theatre, without regretting it much, to be honest. Knowing that it was killing it at the box-office.&nbsp;
And that, more often than not, could signify a pulpy Tamil actioner, with OTT stunts and loud background score&mdash;simply competing with the chaos and cacophony inside the crowded cinema. Some of that is true for Maharaja.&nbsp;
But the movie (now on Netflix) holds your attention, through and through, not so much for its genre tropes, as its sharp writing&mdash;that draws you in, first, with a question as elemental as, say, &lsquo;Katappa ne Baahubali ko kyun maara&rsquo; in S S Rajamouli&rsquo;s Telugu blockbuster&rsquo;s sequel.
Namely, in Maharaja, what/who is Lakshmi? Lakshmi is a dustbin, that&rsquo;s got stolen from Maharaja&rsquo;s house.
<img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2024/jul/Nithilan-Saminathan_e.jpg" alt="Nithilan Saminathan" width="1280" height="720" /> Nithilan Saminathan
This robbery of sorts has shaken up the hero enough to lodge a police complaint&mdash;sit it out over days at an oppressive police station, even demand a CBI inquiry, offering his life&rsquo;s savings as bribe, for cops to investigate a seemingly silly case!&nbsp;
Movie-buffs will label this object&mdash;an excuse in a film, through a chase around which the plot evolves&mdash;MacGuffin. In Nithalan&rsquo;s Kurangu Bommai (2017; Zee5), that MacGuffin is a gold statue of Natraj, from Tanjore, as the script similarly teases/plays with (non-linear) timelines.&nbsp;
Besides the protagonist from the working-classes&mdash;barber/&lsquo;hajaam&rsquo; in Maharaja; taxi-driver in Kurangu&mdash;what unites the two films is how, practically all the characters are prone to extreme deceit, driven by greed alone. It&rsquo;s a dark/cynical, rather than a prescriptive/normative, take on the world, as it is.&nbsp;
After a double-bill of Nithilan&rsquo;s features, I just had to call him up to say, hello; and bravo! &ldquo;My English is poor; hope I can answer your questions,&rdquo; Nithilan tells me.&nbsp;
Well, the answer is resolutely in his scripts/movies, that unravel from a trigger point, into a series of non-stop reveals, that simply never end&mdash;or eventually do, with the most uncomfortable jolt&mdash;while you&rsquo;d been seamlessly hooked, wondering what happens next, rather than why, or how, in a narrative full of accidents and coincidences.
Very Innaritu (Amores Perros, 21 Grams), if you may. Nithilan&rsquo;s adopted first name on WhatsApp, also his YouTube channel, is Akira&mdash;after Kurosawa. You can see why.&nbsp;
As also with the short film that won him Best Director at a popular TV contest (Naalaya Iyakunar), Nithilan says the inspiration behind his scripting is: &ldquo;Match the following.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Meaning? That popular puzzle, where you connect questions on one side of an exam paper, with answers on the other! &ldquo;So, you start with dustbin missing [left-hand side] and join it with an answer [on the right],&rdquo; and so on.&nbsp;
It took Chennai-based Nithilan seven years to film his second feature because, he admits, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t sit and consistently write [on a desk]. Ideas come to me&mdash;and they&rsquo;ve got be next-level, na&mdash;when I&rsquo;m reading, watching, playing&hellip;&rdquo; Living, basically. &nbsp;
The thought behind Maharaja that Nithilan considers, foremost, a &ldquo;simple revenge story&rdquo;, came to him first from a news report.&nbsp;
Where he takes it to is &lsquo;next-level&rsquo; enough that in another age, not long ago, as with, perhaps Vikram Vedha (2017)&mdash;producers in Bombay would&rsquo;ve simply remade Maharaja in Lucknow, replacing the leads with Bollywood actors. That won&rsquo;t be necessary.
Nithilan says he had the toughest time casting for the villain in Maharaja. All the character-actors he approached in Chennai had declined this role&mdash;so purely evil, with a conclusion in the climax that confounds further than it sheds light on him, still.&nbsp;
He&rsquo;d been meaning to onboard Kashyap, anyway. They connected, finally. Kashyap agreed.&nbsp;
What this villainous character has heralded, I notice online, is some serious discussions on the sheer grotesquery in the film&rsquo;s ending&mdash;what it perhaps says, and whether it was warranted at all. &ldquo;Some points, I agree with critics. Some points, I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nithilan sweetly points out.&nbsp;
What&rsquo;s got his goat actually is the ending getting compared to Park Chan-wook&rsquo;s Korean Oldboy (2003), even Rohit Krishnan&rsquo;s Malayalam Iratta (2023). &ldquo;That is just not fair,&rdquo; Nithilan says. I agree.
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com The views expressed in this column are the individual&rsquo;s and don&rsquo;t represent those of the paper.
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You’ve got to do a double-bill with Korangu Bommai (Zee5), Maharaja (Netflix), to say hello to filmmaker Nithilan!

Series of ‘reveals’ that never end

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