Official Trailer:

You sit through perfunctory opening of hero intro fight, intro song, mixed with random video footages of boys from government schools misbehaving with teachers. These scenes move so quickly with no depth. I guess even the director wants to get through these mandatory superstar fan service fast. Our hero Athiyan, played by Rajinikanth, is an encounter specialist who believes in dispensing justice taking the law into his own hands. If he is sure (whatever that is) he will take out the bad guys. With tip off from Saranya, played by Dushara Vijayan, a schoolteacher, Athiyan gets rid of few goons including a bad cop who use the school premises to stash dope. Athiyan reveals the whistleblower’s identity in one of the interviews. Saranya gets transferred to Chennai. She gets assaulted and murdered when she tries to investigate another scam related to defective tabs delivered to school. Athiyan joins the murder investigation team. They zoom in on the culprit and Athiyan takes out the guy. How Athiyan gets the 100% assurance this is the bad guy? The other cop says so 🤦🏻‍♂️ Then it gets revealed by the judge Sathyadev (characterized based on real life person), played by Amitabh, to Athiyan that the he killed is an innocent person.

We have been slouching on the chair about to go to sleep till then. We sit up. Now this is an interesting conflict. That too relevant to current happenings. Plus, we have two stars playing the opposites, one who believes in law and courts and another in encounter killings. We get a ray of hope. We look forward to explosive scenes between Sathyadev and Athiyan. We anticipate an interesting investigative procedural considering the director’s earlier movie JaiBeam.  What a letdown 😩 Scenes between Sathyadev and Athiyan lack fire and fall flat as damp squibs. Except few lines Amitabh character doesn’t register strongly. Investigation takes us through same goons, same dump yard, sandhills, and fights that resemble 80s movies. No innovation with villains too…full of cliches – bad cops who sellout for money, corporate villain in coat and suit, everyone in corporate is bad. But wait…we get rowdies imported from foreign countries too. The encounter premise itself is enough for an interesting drama. But they also bring in NEET and coaching centers. It is not clear whether they are against entrance exams as such or only NEET or against coaching centers. Few catchy dialogues are thrown in for claps (victims of encounter are always poor people….have you heard of any rich person or politician as victims; justice is hurried is justice buried) with no staging that leads to it. It didn’t come out clearly whether Athiyan realized encounters are incorrect as such except for a line at the end where he says police are protectors and not hunters. Jana Gana Mana dealt with similar encounter premise. It was an interesting watch with most of the drama happening in the court. The message came out clearly in Jana Gana Mana – court is the right place to seek and unravel the truth not in print or social media or encounters.

One can say Vettaiyan is a good time pass. For time pass vigilante movies, I would go with Dirty Harry or Equalizer series anytime. Or Vijayakanth movies. What the heck, even Beekeeper would do.