‘Vaa Vaathiyaar’ movie review: Karthi, Nalan Kumarasamy whip a stale ‘Anniyan’ redux

The movie ‘Vaa Vaathiyaar’ is a deal because it has two important people from Tamil cinema. We have the actor Karthi, who’s really good at playing different roles and is very good on screen. Then we have the director Nalan Kumarasamy, who made people like his movies Soodhu Kavvum and Kadhalum Kadanthu Pogum a lot. So people were really looking forward to ‘Vaa Vaathiyaar’.

When you put together an actor like Karthi who’s great at acting naturally and a director like Nalan Kumarasamy who is known for making fun of things in a clever way you expect something new and exciting, from ‘Vaa Vaathiyaar’.. What happens is that the movie tries really hard to look smart and cool but it ends up feeling old and familiar. It feels like we have seen these ideas times before. The movie reminds me of Anniyan from 2005 it is, like the shadow of Anniyan is still there. The movie feels like it is just doing the things that Anniyan did but not as well.

The review that says it is a version of Anniyan is right. This movie takes a lot from Anniyan like the character who is very angry about what is wrong and decides to take matters into his own hands. He fights against people and things that are not right, in society but he does it in extreme ways.

Anniyan was a deal when it came out because of Shankars big ideas and Vikrams strong acting.. Vaa Vaathiyaar does not have the same new and exciting feel that Anniyan had. It also does not make you feel much emotionally and the story is not as important or urgent as Anniyan was. Vaa Vaathiyaar lacks what made Anniyan a classic movie that people still remember.

Plot Overview (Without Major Spoilers)

Karthi plays a character who’s like two different people. In his life Karthi is a normal person who does not seem to be a threat to anyone.. When something bad happens to him Karthi becomes a very strong and fierce person who will do whatever it takes to fight against what is wrong. This is a part of the film the way Karthi can be two different people. When Karthi changes it is meant to be surprising and scary, for the people who do things and take advantage of others. Karthis transformation is supposed to make people feel afraid of what might happen if they keep doing things. The film shows how Karthi fights against injustice. It is very inspiring to watch.

The story is about things that happen in society: people being corrupt the poor being taken advantage of politicians saying one thing and doing another and ordinary people not speaking up. These are issues but we have seen them in many Tamil movies before. We have seen movies like Indian, Anniyan, Kaththi and Jai Bhim, where the main character fights for what’s right. The issue, with Vaa Vaathiyaar is not what it wants to say. How it says it. This thing does not bring a view to these themes. It just puts them in a package with a sarcastic tone. The themes are still the same. Now they look shiny and new. This thing is just presenting the old themes in a different way with a lot of sarcasm.

The Burden of Comparison with Anniyan

You cannot watch ‘Vaa Vaathiyaar’ without thinking of Anniyan. The story of a man who gets tired of the things happening in society and decides to take matters into his own hands to make things right is very similar to Anniyan. The main idea of Vaa Vaathiyaar is about a man who wants to fix the problems in society. This is a lot, like what happens in Anniyan. However:

The movie Anniyan really gets into what happens when people have trauma and it also talks about split personality. Anniyan shows how these things can affect someones life. The idea of personality, in Anniyan is very interesting to think about. Anniyan is a movie that makes you think about trauma and split personality.

Vaa Vaathiyaar uses the idea more like a way to make things look good rather than to really understand the feelings or thoughts of the people, in it. The idea of Vaa Vaathiyaar is used to make the story more interesting and nice to watch not to dig into the emotions or minds of the characters.

In the movie Anniyan Vikrams character was really sad and vulnerable which made people feel bad for him even when he did some things. In the movie Vaa Vaathiyaar Karthis character seems like an idea, not a person. The movie says he is angry and frustrated. It does not really make us feel his anger deeply. The movie Vaa Vaathiyaar and its characters like Karthis character are not as believable as Vikrams character, in Anniyan.

Karthi’s Performance: Strong but Underutilized

Karthi is a good actor in Tamil cinema. He always does a job in the movies he is in. Karthi is good at playing roles in movies like Paruthiveeran and Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru. Karthi is also good at playing roles in movies, like Paiyaa and Sardar. Karthi brings a lot of sincerity to the roles he plays which makes his movies really good.

In ‘Vaa Vaathiyaar’ Karthi does everything that the movie Vaa Vaathiyaar requires him to do. The movie Vaa Vaathiyaar needs Karthi to perform in a way and he does just that. Karthi is a part of the movie Vaa Vaathiyaar and he does his job well.

The guy really looks like a person you know the common man. He has this way, about him that makes him seem like the man.

The man has a lot of power when he is being aggressive and confrontational in these scenes. He really shows his authority, in the scenes and also in the confrontational scenes.

His body language and voice modulation are on point.

The guys performance is stuck in a routine. The script does not give the actor feelings to work with. The movie should have shown us the actors change little by little.. The film jumps right into making the actor a symbol of anger and fighting back. Because of this the actors character is like a superhero, than a person who is really hurt.

Nalan Kumarasamys direction is a bit confusing. It gets lost between being funny and being serious. Sometimes you do not know what Nalan Kumarasamy is trying to say.

Nalan Kumarasamys movies have some parts but they also have some serious parts. Nalan Kumarasamy wants to make people laugh. Nalan Kumarasamy also wants to make people think.

The problem is that Nalan Kumarasamys direction is not clear. You watch Nalan Kumarasamys movie. You are not sure what Nalan Kumarasamy is trying to do. Is Nalan Kumarasamy trying to be funny. Is Nalan Kumarasamy trying to be serious?

Nalan Kumarasamys direction is like that. It is a mix of funny and serious.. Sometimes it gets confusing. You want to know what Nalan Kumarasamy is trying to say. You are not sure.

That is the problem, with Nalan Kumarasamys direction. It is lost between satire and seriousness. Nalan Kumarasamy needs to make it clear what Nalan Kumarasamy is trying to do. Is Nalan Kumarasamy making a movie or a serious movie?

You need to know what to expect from Nalan Kumarasamys movie.. When you watch Nalan Kumarasamys movie you are not sure. That is why Nalan Kumarasamys direction is confusing.

Nalan Kumarasamy is famous for Nalan Kumarasamys dark jokes and the way Nalan Kumarasamy makes fun of society.

Nalan Kumarasamy did a job in Soodhu Kavvum making fun of crime and people being greedy and stupid.

In Kadhalum Kadanthu Pogum Nalan Kumarasamy showed how people really are when they are, in love it was simple and nice.

He is trying to put a lot of things with ‘Vaa Vaathiyaar’.

Political satire

Social criticism

Mass heroism

Psychological thriller elements

The film never figures out what it is supposed to be about. Is the film a social drama? Is the film a comedy? Is the film a mass entertainer? Is the film a thriller? The film has a lot of problems because it cannot make up its mind.

Some scenes in the film are supposed to be disturbing. They are actually funny. Then there are moments in the film that are supposed to be funny. They do not feel right. The film is, over the place and that makes it weak.

Writing and Dialogues

The dialogues are supposed to be sharp and punchy they have a lot of one-liners that criticize corruption and hypocrisy. Dialogues work well in scenes where people are arguing with each other.. A lot of the lines feel like they have been used before in other movies. They sound really powerful when you hear them but dialogues lack originality the dialogues just do not feel new or fresh the corruption and hypocrisy that the dialogues talk about are not shown in a way.

The movie does not show problems in a natural way. It uses speeches and set up arguments instead. This makes the story feel like it is teaching us something than making us feel like we are part of it. The social issues are what the movie is trying to talk about the social issues are important, to the story.

Visual Style and Technical Aspects

Technically, the film is polished:

Cinematography is stylish, with dark tones and dramatic lighting.

The background score is trying to make the movie more intense. It does this by adding a lot of emotion to the music. The background score really tries to elevate the intensity of the scenes in the movie. This is what the background score does to make the movie better.

The action scenes are made to look really powerful. They do this by planning out the action sequences to make them look impressive. The action sequences are what make the movie exciting.

The thing is style is not enough to make up for a story that’s not very good. The pictures and stuff look like they are just added on to a story that’s not very interesting instead of being a part of the story itself. The visuals feel like they are decoration they do not really feel like they belong with the storyline of the movie. The storyline is thin. The visuals are just trying to make it look better.

The movie feels old. It does not feel new or exciting. The Film feels like it has been done before. The Film is not special or different.

People think The Film feels stale because it is too similar to movies. The Film does not have anything to say. The Film is, like all the other movies that came out before it. The Film feels stale because it is boring and not interesting.

The main reason Vaa Vaathiyaar feels stale is that:

The core idea is not new.

The movie or whatever it is that they made does not really make you feel anything. The execution lacks depth. It is like they did not try hard to make the characters seem real or to make you care about what happens to them. The execution of the story lacks depth and that is a big problem.

The character arcs are predictable.

The social commentary is surface-level.

This movie seems like it was made for people who will just accept the hero who takes the law into his hands. The people who made the movie think that the audience will not ask questions, about whether what the vigilante hero is doing’s really right or wrong. The movie does not make you think about the vigilante hero and his actions it just wants you to like him. The vigilante hero does things that’re not really okay but the movie does not seem to care about that.

Tamil cinema has a long and complicated history with the vigilante genre. We have seen a lot of movies like Indian that came out in 1996 and Anniyan that came out in 2005 and also movies like Kaththi that came out in 2014 and Jai Bhim that came out in 2021. People really like watching stories about one hero who stands up against things that’re not fair.

These Tamil movies were good because they showed us something, like a different way to feel about things or they talked about important issues that needed to be addressed or they helped us understand the characters better. The movie Vaa Vaathiyaar does not do this. It takes the idea from these old movies but it does not have the same heart and spirit that made those movies so good.

The vigilante film is good when people know why the protagonist gets so extreme. The protagonist of the vigilante film must be really angry. It has to make sense.

The vigilante film protagonists anger has to feel like it is justified. It is about something that happened to the vigilante film protagonist.

In the movie Anniyan the main character changed because of something that happened when he was a kid and he was also very frustrated, with what was right and wrong.

In the movie Indian the main character changed because he did not like the system and how it worked.

In the movie Jai Bhim, the character changed because of things that really happened and people suffered a lot.

In the movie Vaa Vaathiyaar they show us why the characters do things. We do not really feel it. The things that happen to Karthi and change him seem like things that just happen to move the story rather than things that actually make us feel something. Vaa Vaathiyaar tells us that Karthi is angry. The movie does not give us time to think about that anger. Vaa Vaathiyaar quickly moves on to exciting scenes instead.

This makes the fact that he becomes a vigilante feel like it was supposed to happen along rather than something that had to happen. The vigilante turn feels expected than something that was always going to be the case.

Missed Opportunity to Modernize the Genre

In 2026 people are really paying attention to what’s going on around them and they are not so quick to believe in heroes who do simple things. Taking the law into your hands, which is what vigilante justice is does not automatically make you a hero anymore. It actually makes people think about whether this kind of justice’s really right or not. Vigilante justice raises a lot of questions, about what is fair and what is not.

The question is who gets to decide what justice really is. Is it the people in charge. Is it something that we all get to say what it is? The concept of justice is a thing because it can mean different things to different people. What one person thinks is just another person might not think is fair all. So who gets to make the decision about what justice’s ? Is it the courts, the government. Is it something that we all have to figure out together? Justice is a word and it is hard to say what it really means. The people who’re in charge like judges and politicians they play a big role, in deciding what justice is.. What about the rest of us do we get a say in what is just and what is not?

When people in power abuse their power it can have bad effects. Power abuse is when someone uses their power to do something that’s not fair or right. This can happen in places like at work or in the government.

The people who abuse power like a boss or a leader can do things that hurt people. They might use their power to get what they want even if it is not fair to others. Power abuse can make people feel scared or unhappy.

For example a boss might abuse their power by being mean to their employees or by making them do things that’re not part of their job. A leader might abuse their power by making rules that’re not fair or by using their power to get rich.

Power abuse is a problem because it can make people feel powerless. The people who are abused might feel like they cannot do anything to stop it.. There are things that can be done to stop power abuse. We need to make sure that people, in power are fair and honest and that they use their power to help others not to hurt them. We need to talk about power abuse and make sure that everyone knows what it is and how to stop it. Power abuse is a problem that affects everyone so we all need to work to stop it.

Can violence really fix the problems that are part of the system? I do not think so. Violence is not a way to make things better. The problems that are part of the system are very complicated. Violence will only make things worse. We need to think of ways to solve these systemic problems. We need to talk about the issues and find a way to fix them that does not involve violence. Violence is not the answer, to problems.

The movie ‘Vaa Vaathiyaar’ does not really think about these things. It shows the hero doing things. It is like he is always right. There is nobody who really disagrees with the hero and his ideas. No character, in ‘Vaa Vaathiyaar’ really makes the hero think about if what he is doing’s good or bad.

This is the part where the film feels old. The film behaves like a vigilante movie, from the 2000s that just came out in the 2020s. The film really feels like a 2000s vigilante film.

A modern approach could have looked at lots of things like

* what people do

* how things are made

* what people think about the approach

The modern approach is something that people are talking about and it is very interesting to think about what the modern approach can do, for us and how it can help the modern approach to become even better.

The danger of glorifying violence

The psychological cost of becoming a “messiah”

The thin line between justice and obsession

The movie plays it safe. It goes for something that lots of people will like of trying to be really complicated. The film chooses to appeal to a crowd rather than trying to be complex like the film could have been.

Female Characters: Underwritten and Marginal

One of the problems with ‘Vaa Vaathiyaar’ is the way it deals with the female characters in the story. The female characters are mostly there, to:

Support the hero

React to his transformation

Serve as emotional anchors

Women are not often the ones who drive the story forward in these movies. This is really disappointing especially when you think about how many people want to see women in Tamil cinema. Tamil cinema should have female characters because that is what people are looking for now. The female characters, in Tamil cinema are very important.

In movies like Jai Bhim or Aruvi the women are not there to show emotions. They actually do things that change what happens in the story.. In the movie Vaa Vaathiyaar the women are there. They do not have a lot of power. We do not get to see what the women think about things like what’s right and wrong or what they are afraid of. The women in Vaa Vaathiyaar and their thoughts, on justice are not really talked about.

This again makes the film feel old-fashioned like it was made a time ago. The film really feels like it is, from a time the film does not feel modern at all the film feels old.

Supporting Cast: Functional, Not Memorable

The people, around the hero are mainly there to help the heros story move along.

Corrupt politicians

Greedy businessmen

Helpless common people

Loyal friends

These people are all very typical. None of the characters in Vaa Vaathiyaar do anything unexpected. I think about a movie like Anniyan, where even the smaller characters had a lot of depth to them. But Vaa Vaathiyaar does not do this the characters, in Vaa Vaathiyaar are just flat. You know exactly what they will do.

The world, in this movie does not feel real. It seems like they made a set just to get a point across of creating a place where people actually live. The film world feels fake because of this.

Music and Background Score

The music in the background is really intense and dramatic. It is made to make the hero look good when they change. The music does what it is supposed to do. It gets boring after a while. Every big moment has a lot of music so you never get a chance to hear silence or feel anything. The background music is too much it does not let the heros transformation scenes be quiet, for a second the background score is always there.

A strong movie about a vigilante knows when to be quiet. Sometimes saying nothing is scarier, than having music. The movie Anniyan did this well.. The movie ‘Vaa Vaathiyaar’ uses music too much to tell the audience how they should feel.

The songs are nice to listen to. They do not feel like they are a part of the story. They make the movie feel slow. We do not learn much about the characters from them. The songs just seem to be and do not really help us understand the characters, in the movie.

Pacing and Screenplay Structure

The movie story has some problems, with the speed at which things happen. Sometimes The screenplay is really slow. Sometimes The screenplay is really fast. This is what people mean by pacing in The screenplay.

The beginning of this thing is really slow. It takes a long time for the movie or whatever it is to get to the good stuff you know, the familiar themes that we are used to seeing. The first half is just too long. It is boring because it does not have these familiar themes that we like.

The second half of the story rushes through some big developments. The second half does not take its time. It rushes through these major developments. This makes the second half feel a bit weird because it goes fast through the major developments of the second half.

The transformation part of the movie, which is supposed to be the part that really gets to you feels like it is rushed. The movie does not show the person changing slowly in their mind it just jumps from being completely normal, to being really extreme. The transformation part of the movie is what should be the core of the film but it feels compressed.

This makes the character not seem real. It does not feel like his actions matter that much. The character is just not believable. This takes away, from what he does. The actions of the character do not have an impact because we do not really think he is a real person.

The movie feels like a repeat of Anniyan. It has the kind of story and characters as Anniyan. The Film feels like we have seen it before in Anniyan.

The Film has a lot of things that’re similar, to Anniyan. This is why The Film feels like Anniyan over again.

The similarities are not just thematic but structural:

Anniyan Vaa Vaathiyaar

Morally outraged hero Morally outraged hero

Transformation into enforcer Transformation into enforcer

Symbolic punishments Symbolic punishments

Stylish presentation Stylish presentation

Heavy background score Heavy background score

While Anniyan added a lot of real feelings to the story ‘Vaa Vaathiyaar’ only adds some cool style. Anniyan and ‘Vaa Vaathiyaar’ are different because Anniyan makes us feel something but ‘Vaa Vaathiyaar’ just looks good. It takes the shape as Anniyan but it does not have the same heart, as Anniyan.

The Problem of Style Over Substance

The movie appears to be obsessed with:

Dark lighting

Slow-motion shots

Big surprises that are revealed in a way are really exciting. The dramatic reveals are what make a story interesting. Dramatic reveals can be found in movies and books. They are the reveals that people talk about after they finish watching or reading something.

Punch dialogues

These techniques used to work well in the past because they were new and exciting. Nowadays they seem of fake unless the writing behind them is really good. The techniques I am talking about are not effective, on their own anymore the techniques need to be supported by writing to actually work.

‘Vaa Vaathiyaar’ is technically competent but emotionally shallow. It tries to dazzle the audience instead of trusting the power of its story.