If you look at the trailer for the new Tamil movie Blast, they have pretty much revealed all their main characters, and we are going into theaters knowing that the whole family is trained in Karate. So I was kind of curious to know how writer-director Subash K Raj would develop a good story around this, as they have basically revealed the USP of the movie in the trailer itself. Even though it has all the compromises to make it appealing to all kinds of audiences, Blast has smart writing in the middle portion that makes it a narratable, fun story rather than a series of action blocks. With predictable beats getting tweaked for the good, Blast offers a fun time inside the theater.
Rajaraman, his wife Neelaveni, and their daughter Nila are the main characters of this movie. The family owns a medical shop. Nila works at a call center. Neelaveni is a housewife, and Rajaraman is a Karate teacher. Rajaraman has trained Nila to be someone who would stand by justice at any cost, and that has created some problems in the family. At one point, something that Nila does to protect herself snowballs into something really huge, and the family has to face heat from big people. How they managed to do that is what we see in this movie.
As you can imagine, it is about a family protecting itself from outside attack in whatever way they can. And if you look at it, one can say the same thing about Drishyam. And in a way, I would say Blast is what if Drishyam was part of LCU. It is that kind of imagination where the makers are using the familiar protecting your family idea in an action-heavy movie. In the beginning portions, the messaging is a bit too loud, and one can see a lot of fan service happening for Arjun. But it is the second act of the movie that feels exciting. The way the movie connects two groups of people who have no connection with one another through minute elements in a complicated procedure looks extremely believable on screen. And it was interesting how it became more about the story, as we can see a certain misunderstanding between the goons and police, which made some scenes really funny.
Subash K Raj’s strength is the way he constructs small details in scenes. There is a particular sequence where Nila goes to a place to help a woman, and the way she enters the frame subtly communicates how men ignored the possibility of her being a badass. And some of the setups through dialogues have two payoffs, and that gives a freshness to the scene, even though it is in a familiar space. The action blocks are designed very effectively, and the speed ramping is done precisely to have that impact. In some areas, Ravi Basrur’s music is somewhat different from his usual style, and it was so refreshing to see a Ravi Basrur theme being played for a colorful visual rather than the usual coal mine color palette. The movie has to be appealing to a wider audience, and hence, towards the end, there is this overtly sentimental switch where Nila gives a lecture about protecting the people of a certain village. The tone shift of the movie in that part, with a very jarring song sung by Vaikom Vijayalakshmi, somewhat broke the rhythm.
Arjun as Rajaraman is easily the best and perfect choice to play this part, as he still looks believable as the action king, and the character perfectly fits his age. The swagger was definitely there in his performance. Preity Mukhundan as Nila was terrific with her flexibility in all those action sequences. Even in carrying the style, she did an impressive job. Abhirami as Neelaveni is more of a typical mother for a larger part. Even though she is also switching her gears after a point, her bits in the action were more on the supportive side. Arjun Chidambaram as Abraham creates a good impression with his performance as the nonchalant villain. John Kokken plays the part of your typical corporate tycoon villain. Vivek Prasaana and Pawan are also part of the star cast.
Despite the whole structure of the story being very predictable, there is a fun energy to the movie that makes it never really boring. In the first half, there are several subplots, for example, the things Nila had to face in her workplace, and if you remove that whole track from the movie, it won’t really disturb the film, as it has already established how dangerous she is. But the movie is able to present those scenes without really disturbing the flow of things. With the action looking very pulsating on screen, Blast, on the whole, is an enjoyable theatrical watch.
