Karuppu Movie Review:

Intervention. As it is said in the Bhagavad Gita, “Whenever there is a decay of righteousness, and a rise of unrighteousness, then I manifest Myself…” So, whenever society descends into moral darkness, it needs an intervention from the powers that be to remind it of the values of being good, and, more importantly, just. RJ Balaji’s Karuppu is based on this simple premise and set within a dilapidated courtroom, which serves as a stand-in for the crumbling justice system. In fact, the courtroom is a character in itself in Karuppu, and straight out of Netflix’s Maamla Legal Hai universe. But Karuppu isn’t a slice-of-life drama or a rooted retelling of the issues plaguing our courts. It is an out-and-out entertainer with an important additional layer that makes it even more interesting: Divinity, or, in simpler terms… Balaji is back with a ‘Saami’ padam, and this time, everything is bigger than the last time he ventured down this path with Mookuthi Amman (2020). He has a broader scope, a grander vision, and, of course, a larger-than-life Suriya at the center. And yet, Balaji misses the opportunity to fully commit to the extraordinary premise, one in which God is asked to behave like a human being in a world where humans consider themselves gods. Imagine! 

Director: RJ Balaji

Cast: Suriya, RJ Balaji, Trisha, Sshivada, Indrans, Anagha Maya Ravi, and Natty Natraj

But before going into Suriya’s ‘God Mode,’ let’s take baby steps. Baby Kannan (RJ Balaji) is a ruthless lawyer who runs the Seven Wells Court complex and has created a network of lawyers who moonlight as henchmen and do his bidding. It is a monopoly aided by the in-house judge Rajanayagam (Natty), and it is a courtroom where money speaks louder than the gavel. It is into this godforsaken world that a frail father (Indrans) and his disillusioned daughter (Anagha Maya Ravi) enter. They come in for a straightforward case, but are met with some ugly defenders of the law, who do everything they can to wring money out of them. The film makes yet another compelling case for how the process is the most painful when taking the legal route. When nothing goes to plan, what else can the father do but to trust his faith… his faith in the local deity, Karuppu. And the stage is set for Karuppu, who turns into Saravanan, a lawyer, to unleash his righteous wrath against the wrongdoers. 

However, this leaves us with two big questions: How can the omnipresent be stopped, and what can Baby even do to stop it? In this world created by Balaji and team, they bring in a few rules, the primary one being that God shouldn’t flex his powers to get things done. It is an interesting challenge for Karuppu to figure out how to inspire people to do the right thing by… doing the right thing. It leads to another fantastic question: What is Karuppu without his divine powers? Now, this would have made for an exploration of morality in today’s times. This would also mean the writing has to conjure up scenes in which Saravanan is made to understand how the legal system is stacked against the people it is meant to protect. But why do all of this when you can have Sai Abhyankkar dial up the elevation with ‘Verappa,’ cinematographer GK Vishnu using his favorite red filter, and Suriya turn into Karuppu and bring the roof down with sheer talent and aura. Even as we willingly get distracted by these additions, it is tough to get away from the gnawing feeling of what was sacrificed at the writing altar.

Apart from Suriya and Balaji, Indrans gets the lion’s share of the film’s runtime, and the veteran delivers a powerful performance as a person defeated by the system. Along with Anagha, Indrans holds the key to the film's emotional core, and when the eventuality occurs, Karuppu is truly elevated. This elevation works better for the film because it doesn’t come at the expense of the narrative. That is why it is disappointing when this emotional core is soon sacrificed for mass masala. The basic aspect of any ‘saamy padam’ (faith based film) is the extension of sympathy to the people whom the antagonist oppresses. Here, it is reduced to a simple Hero vs. Villain trope, no different from the various commercial entertainers that hit the screen every other Friday. 

The only difference here is that Suriya, as Karuppu, personifies the deity's rage and wrath. It is a very powerful performance, and it gets even better given how effortlessly good Suriya is as Saravanan, the non-deity form of Karuppu. However, the writing doesn’t really allow Saravanan to do much other than walk in slow-motion, don his sunglasses, do a couple of Suriya mannerisms, and find himself feeding into the never-ending trend of references from the star’s filmography. Here, they go a couple of steps more to bring in references from other stars, too. Some work, while others don’t, and more importantly, most of them don’t serve the story, and that’s where Karuppu misses the trick. While there was so much to play with the God vs Human conflict, why resort to resolutions that don’t respect the film’s own rules and regulations? Take, for instance, that scene where Baby realises that Karuppu has an Achilles’ heel. It is a serious scene with an intentionally hilarious punchline featuring Mansoor Ali Khan and Co. It could have gone in various ways, but it ends early because the film opts for a ‘mass’ scene instead. Again, having mass moments isn’t wrong, but the film doesn’t earn it with honesty. Yes, Suriya carries off this mass like it is nobody’s business, but these aspects aren’t fleshed out properly, including the central ‘promise’ that underpins the film's premise.

Also, every other character in the film is either wasted at best or forgettable at worst, including Swasika and Sshivada, who get thankless roles, and Trisha, who turns back time only to play a character that should have been left behind. And then there is Sai Abhyankkar, who works overtime to make Karuppu sound like a rousing chant that reverberates in the air. While there are scenes where his emotional soundtrack doesn’t leave the same impact, he more than compensates for it in the ‘mass’ moments. The film is also bolstered by some perfectly placed one-liners. There’s that hilarious line involving WWE, and one with Vignesh Shivan. The beauty of these lines comes through even better because they aren’t just references from other films, but original lines.

Whenever Suriya takes on the Karuppu avatar, the film turns into a veneration of the deity, and rightly so. The scenes set within a divine portal are wonderfully staged and feel like our own version of a Dark Dimension. However, when the focus isn’t on the omnipresent, the film runs out of breath and labours to the next ‘mass’ moment, and it is in this journey that Karuppu loses out on being the true-blue saami padam that it could have been. As Natty’s character says in the film, “Saami nu therinju sanda poda naa Karan-um kidayaadhu, Nizhalgal Ravi-um kidayaadhu. (I am not a Karan or a Nizhagal Ravi to willfully square off against god).” This is a terrific throwback to the saami padam of the nineties and noughties, where such films had an unabashed villain who didn’t mind taking on the divinity for his own nefarious purposes. Baby, who was modelled on the same, gets shortchanged by the writer who wrote him. He isn’t a worthy adversary because his actions aren’t blasphemous enough. He is just another villain, and isn’t ‘bad’ or ‘invincible’ enough for God to decide to descend to live among mortals.

Karuppu has a lot going for it, especially a rock-solid Suriya and a much-improved RJ Balaji, who shows his flair for staging mass scenes that showcase everything from superstardom to production values. However, it ends up a bit all over the place because it moved away from its own tenets, and ends up needing an intervention to remind everyone involved that a God complex helps no one in cinema.