It’s been two decades and fifty films since he made his entrance into the film industry. He is one of the select few who saw success and fame knock his door without having a godfather or related contacts in the film industry to help him succeed. That factor has long been a massive reason why he has a legion of supporters and why, despite having his share of detractors, he is renowned at large as the King of Box Office openings.

If you had happened to watch Mankatha, his 50th film directed by the rising directorial star Vengkat Prabhu at any theater today, you would have had a sense of the kind of support he attracts.

The first five minutes of the film, with a regular macho fight scene, was evidently designed just to prelude the grand ‘Thala 50’ credit that followed after. But you need not cringe even if you are not a fan, because what Ajith Kumar does in the next two odd hours proves why deserves to be where he is, and how he is not like a regular do-gooder hero who bashes a villain.

Name me another Tamil actor as famous as him who’d be willing to take up a villain role to commemorate his 5oth film. I bet we could count the amount of actors with our fingers.

Mankatha is the story about a illegal gambling mafia that runs the show in Dharavi, Mumbai at the backdrop of the IPL cricket season. A corrupt, suspended police officer Vinayak Mahadevan (Ajith) masks himself as a dignified policeman while at the same time plotting to loot a massive 500 crores that is being transferred among the Mumbai underworld dons as the pressure intensifies from the special police squad designed to eradicate illegal gambling, led by officer Prithviraj (Arjun). At the same time, a group of four small-timers, sub-inspector Ganesh (Ashwin), bar owner Mahat, IIT topper Prem (Premji Amaran), and gambling chettiyar’s right-hand man Sumanth (Vaibhav Reddy) are planning their own heist on chettiyar’s money.

How these multiple characters come together to play a game of dangerous hide-and-seek with plenty of money and gunfights forms the crux of the story.

Trying to get the best out of a multi-star cast is not an easy thing, but this has precisely been the highlight of Vengkat’s three-film career. But it must also be noted that he had never teamed up with any A-list stars beyond the comfort of his loyalists (Premji, Shiva, Aaravind, Vaibhav, Jai) up until now. In this film, you see him juggling between Ajith, Arjun, and Trisha while allocating space for the likes of Aaravind and Vaibhav.

Ajith proves that he only needs a good script to perform to the best of his abilities. If his decision to act as a baddie in his 50th film isn’t commendable enough, then his performance will eradicate any doubts about his potential. It also gives you a kind of longing that he never quite got the opportunities to flex his potential in his many years in the film industry. He dances, drinks booze, cracks comedy, riles in punchy one-liners, laughs sadistically, sleeps with random women, kills without mercy, and spews four-letter words with alarming realism in this film. There is even one noir moment in the film when he says ‘I am a bad man’. Being bad has never looked so cool on screen.

Arjun tries to match him punch for punch in the few scenes he gets for himself, and manages to give a decent account of himself, though I’m still wondering what might have been had the role been done by the actor who was supposed to do it initially- Nagarjun. Though Arjun ain’t a bad choice, he has done such roles umpteen times in his career it was almost as if it had nothing new to offer.

Vaibhav and Jayaprakash were both convincing, while Vengkat’s decision to give his brother Premji a role in this film can be questioned, as it did look out of place in some scenes.

Aaravind did well in his role as Jayaprakash’s loyal henchman, while Trisha exuded the most charm among the female leads though the film evidently belonged to the guys. Lakshmi Rai was seductive yet destructive in her negative role, while Andrea and Anjali both received limited screen time. But with an abundance of talent, they manage to leave an impression, though Anjali more or less only showed her body in the song Nee Naan.

Yuvan’s music bodes well for the film, though the score falls more on the average bracket and won’t be considered to be among Yuvan’s better works.

In the writing and directing department, Vengkat displays the traits of a first-time director with this venture. Mankatha is the film where he needed to outgrow his comfort zone of making urbane comedies using B-list faces. Plus, Mankatha had a serious theme and needed expert handling in the screenplay department. At large, Vengkat succeeds. But there definitely is room for improvement. Premji’s character was out of place while several scenes in the first half appeared unnecessary.  The song Vada Bin Lada and Open the Bottle both had no place whatsoever in the narration. And some suspense scenes were handled amateurishly. It is fair to say Ajith’s electrifying screen presence and body language overshadowed in loopholes in the film’s narration.

But the beard that he has been sporting since production commenced shows how much hard work he had put into the project, and the effort alone is one worthy of recognition. One plus point is though the film seems like a regular heist movie, it was not inspired for any Hollywood flick per se.

And yes, this climax is worth weighing in gold, especially compared to the stale ones we get treated with at Kollywood day in, day out.

All in all, like Ajith says, this is his f***ing game, and you better not mess with him. Go and watch this bad man.

Rating: 7.5/10

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