Why Vikram’s Mahaan is a miracle that refused to happen

Why Vikram’s Mahaan is a miracle that refused to happen

Chiyaan Vikram is an enigma if you consider the unforgiving nature of any film industry. Umpteen stories tell us how a star can overnight be rendered jobless with a few consistent flops. There are many riches to rags stories, and yet Vikram ducks them all. As he turns 58 today, one can wonder how he manages to stay in the game.

Vikram’s last blockbuster was Shankar’s I in 2015. After I, 10 Endrathukulla (Before you count to ten) was released, and it was taken off the screens in well… before one could count to ten. Later, Iru Mugan came with a lot of promise. Vikram was yet again playing a dual role in the movie. Despite the initial allure of the sci-fi film, it bit the dust. The less said about Sketch and Swamy Square the better. Kadarama Kondaan was a unique attempt with Vikram not uttering a single dialogue until the very end of the film. Despite the slick nature of the movie, it failed to pack a punch. Amidst all this came the pandemic, which drowned a film, which could have been a glorious comeback for Vikram. The film had everything that would have made up for an extraordinary theatre experience that would have served Chiyaan fans. But the lockdown forced the makers to release it online killing its potential and making it an unmemorable film in the actor’s career when it had all the potential to be a milestone in his career… if only it had made it to the big screen.

Mahaan (Great) had a sly humour even in the nomenclature of the film’s characters. Gandhi Mahaan is the name of the protagonist played by Vikram. One cannot help but laugh at the name and wonder what kind of father decides to name his son after the father of the nation and doom his future for one. There are many Gandhis out there, but ‘Gandhi Mahaan’ is a huge cross to bear. Imagine a child struggling to live up to the name, on top of the added guilt every time he lies or does things that are unbecoming of the name.

Hence, Gandhi Mahaan turns out to be the polar opposite of whatever his namesake stood for. Vikram aced the transformation of being a demure husband, tormented by his righteous wife and in-laws, to a hedonistic gangster who loves making, gambling, and amassing money. He loves everything they loathe. As a middle-aged husband wearing a floral shirt at the bar and changing to boring plain clothes at home, Vikram’s predicament at the start of the film is funny and sad at the same time. Now, here’s a snag that both Karthik Subbaraj and Vikram have to handle carefully. His honest Gandhian family, who on paper are exemplary citizens, should come across as purists and smug beings, while the fun-loving spendthrift has to turn the good guy in the audience’s eyes. Vikram’s effortless acting achieves it. He makes it easy for the director to send the core message of the film that fundamentalism, even if it is about discipline and honesty, is a path that leads to devastation.

At the start of the film, it is established that Gandhi Mahaan can never get sloshed by booze or any kind of intoxicant. He always needs more. This set-up is brilliantly used for the transformation of Gandhi Mahaan from a normie to a street fighter. The villains spike the drinks of Gandhi and their friends so that they can take them all when they are unconscious, but as you know, Gandhi Mahaan can’t get sloshed easily. Thus, begins a fight sequence between the drunken Gandhi and the gangster with Santhosh Narayana’s “Naan Naan” in the background. The technically sound fight, which is a string of many long shots involving complex set pieces, should have been enough for Chiyaan fans to go berserk. Throughout the entire fight, Vikram enacts a drunken man having fun thrashing his enemies. He is also ecstatic that he has finally found the way of violence. I can’t imagine any other actor pulling it off the sequence with equal parts humour and heroism.

The second part of the film has Vikram play the older version of Gandhi Mahaan, who becomes more stylish and suave. He also finds a villain in his real-life son Dhruv, who enters the story as Gandhi’s son Dadabhai Naoroji IPS, who is out to get back at his dad for going against the familial way of Gandhian life. After the poor launch of Dhruv with Aditya Varma, Mahaan should have helped him a lot as he had immense scope for acting. Yet, Vikram’s acting prowess cannibalised his son’s work. It’s funny how Chiyaan emerged as the winner in both reel and real life as Mahaan did more for him than Dhruv.

Yet, all such brilliance was lost as the film missed out on getting its much-deserved big screen. Mahaan ended with a promise of a sequel where Naoroji, the righteous fundamentalist, starts embracing the vices of life and Mahaan starts to live up to his name. Yet, with the underwhelming performance of the film on OTT, a second part of the brilliant gangster film is unlikely.

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