Ratsasan Review: A brilliantly made edge-of-the-seat thriller
Director Ram Kumar of ‘Mundasupatti’ fame reunites with Vishnu Vishal for ‘Ratsasan’, which in stark contrast to his debut film, is a psycho-thriller. Let’s jump straight to the review.
Arun Kumar (Vishnu Vishal) is an assistant director who is toiling hard to make his maiden independent film. He plans to do a psycho thriller film and for that he collects datas and details about psycho killers from different parts of the world. Despite all his efforts, he fails to get a producer to fund his film. A distraught Arun eventually joins the police force as per his family’s wish. After he joins the force, a couple of school-going teenage girls are kidnapped and murdered. Arun finds similarities between the two cases and he convinces his superiors about the presence of a psycho behind the killings. How Arun and his team manage to nab the killer forms the rest of the plot.
Despite following the standard templates of a Tamil cinema thriller, Ratsasan stands out with its brilliant screenplay that offers plenty of thrills. There are several twists in the plot, which keeps audience hooked at the edge of their seats right till the end. It is not easy to keep the audience engaged with such a lengthy run time of nearly 3 hours, but Arun Kumar has clearly managed to do so with his smart writing.
The lead actor’s performance is one of the most important aspects in an investigative thriller, but it often goes unnoticed by the brilliance in the script. The actor should have the ability to make the audience feel the thrill with his performance. Here in Ratsasan, Vishnu Vishal has delivered a finely measured act. The attitude of a smart young-cop-at-work or the slight expressions when he finds the clues or the confidence with which he explains his findings to his seniors have all been effectively brought on screen by Vishnu. The rom-com track involving him and Amala Paul adds nothing much to the plot, but it is still forgivable as they last just a few minutes. The actor who played the teacher’s role, Munishkanth Ramdoss, Nizhalgal Ravi and Kaali Venkat were the other notable performers.
Music is another major plus in the movie. With an artistic killer involved, the role played by music is much bigger and Ghibran has lived up to the demands of the script. His music brings the right amount of chills. The particular piece he has composed for the killer stands out and is easily among one of his best works.
In a nutshell, Ratsasan is a movie that has almost all the elements of a perfect investigative thriller. It has the right commercial elements to please the commoner and doesn’t really question their sensibilities. A thrilling experience that should never be missed in theatres.
