Netrikkan Review – A Thriller Disaster Even Nayanthara Cannot Save

What Is the Story About?

CBI Officer Durga loses her younger brother and her eyes at the same time, in a horrific accident. She eventually moves on and starts to learn living as a blind woman. When she inadvertently becomes a part of a hit-and-run case, her investigative skills starts tingling. However, little does she know, she is being watched from afar.

Performances?

Netrikkan primarily focuses on two characters – the protagonist, Durga and the antagonist, the serial killer. This means the film focuses on Nayanthara and Ajmal Ameer, who portray the above mentioned characters, respectively. Both actors do a decent job with the script they are given, but we never really felt invested in either portrayal. Nayanthara does give a more nuanced performance than Ajmal, however, and she manages to invoke a feeling of helplessness when her character gets into some scary situations. Ajmal’s initial introduction is good, but he doesn’t show any character depth throughout the film.

Analysis

Netrikkann has a good premise. An ex-police officer ends up losing her eyes and her brother in a brutal car accident. After months of therapy and rehabilitation, she learns to live as a blind woman. However, her brother’s death still hangs over head, because if she hadn’t handcuffed her brother to the car (as a punishment for hanging out with the wrong crowd and possessing drugs), he would still be alive. When the topic of the car accident comes up when talking with her foster mother, she angrily walks out of her former home.

During the same time, a man is going around kidnapping vulnerable women for his sexual pleasure. The police are looking for this serial kidnapper, but no one knows who this man is, or how he is targeting his victims. One day, this serial kidnapper notices Durga standing in the rain at the bus stand. Fascinated by Durga for some reason, he invites her to get in his car. Durga gets into a car, believing it to be the taxi she had ordered earlier. After a while, she starts to notice a few things, off, about the “taxi driver”. When the driver offers her water to drink, she smells something weird in the water and declines. When the driver continues to insist that she needs to take a drink, they get into a small scuffle, causing our kidnapper to accelerate his car and hit a woman at high speeds. The driver deposits the body in the trunk of his car and tells Durga that he hit a dog by accident. Feeling suspicious, Durga attempts to call the cops but the driver kicks her out of the car and flees the scene. In her haste, she leaves her ID card behind, and our kidnapper uses it as a way to get to her.

Durga goes to the cops and tells them what happened. Because she is blind, the cops think that her case will likely be a dead-end; they assign it to a recently-disgraced cop. The cop and Durga start to piece clues together to find the hit-and-run “cab driver”, while the kidnapper starts to look into Durga. What follows is a cat and mouse thriller for the ages.

Or at least, that is what Netrikkan should be. The above synopsis alone is a brilliant way to start the film, and it is only the first 30 minutes of the movie. Durga is a highly sophisticated character – she lost her brother two years ago, but she is still grieving his death. She is still paid by the CBI, due to her disability, but they refuse to give her a desk job because of the circumstances behind her previous accident. A grieving, intelligent woman who is getting restless doing nothing at home suddenly gets a case to solve and ends up meeting a young man who reminds her of her brother. This calls for a veteran actress to play this nuanced role and Nayanthara is perfect. However, her portrayal is wooden, preachy and irritatingly one-dimensional. Ajmal Ameer actually gets an even better character to portray on screen. A dangerous biastophilia who discovers his paraphilia after he accidentally kills his wife. To take care of his libido, he starts to kidnap “bad women” to have non-consensual sex AKA rape. Ajmal, however, squanders his chance and gives us a pretty average performance.

And these are not even the main issues of Netrikkan. The amount of plot holes and ridiculous plot devices used, can put anyone off this movie. Ajmal Ameer’s character is supposed to this smart serial killer, but he does some ridiculously stupid things to get himself caught. And for a man who kidnapped over five women, the amount of people securing his cell is surprisingly small. He also easily beats three trained cops and escapes jail using some brilliant plot armour. Also Nayanthara’s character gets rescued by the young delivery boy and his friends by a ridiculous amount of luck – which will not happen in real life. Also using a supposed truth serum, the cops managed to get his entire back story, but they can’t get the location of the young women out of his mouth. This is when people use the “BS” word with impunity.

As for some of the ridiculous plot devices – the late wife of our serial killer looks exactly like Durga, a crazy coincidence. Also, towards the end of the movie, the parallels between Durga breaking a car window and her trying to rescue her brother makes no sense at all. There is a loose “saving/ protecting her brother element” there, but that’s about it – which we get a five minute parallel sequence for. Also the concept of “women who sleep with men are bad” and its rebuttal are unnecessarily added in the middle portion of the movie – out of nowhere, for a preachy/ bad-ass comeback and it pretty much kills the whole tone of Netrikkan. It is also never mentioned again.

Perhaps, the only few good parts in the movie are some of the scenes featuring the cop portrayed by K. Manikandan and a scene where the delivery boy gets pulled over by a cop – which is perhaps the most realistic scene in Netrikkan.

Overall, Netrikkan is a movie that has a very good premise, but it loses its way from the get go. With more time, a better script writer and director – this movie had the potential to be the best Tamil thriller of 2021. Instead, we are left with this crappy film.

Other Artists?

There are two other main actors who play a supporting role in this film – K. Manikandan and Saran Shakthi. While Saran Shakthi’s character is there because the script demands him to be, K. Manikandan has much more to offer. While he is not a standout in Netrikkan, he still has a few scenes that bring some levity to an otherwise dark film, and is a welcome addition to the movie. For Saran however, this movie is going to be just another feature to be added into his acting repertoire. He didn’t have much to do besides being a person for Nayanthara’s character to rescue.

Music and Other Departments?

The cinematography, music and some of the editing in Netrikkan are the few decent parts in this movie. Girishh Gopalakrishnan, R.D. Rajasekhar and Lawrence Kishore are the ones who worked on the aforementioned portions of the film. The script and dialogues are abysmal. The direction by Milind Rau requires a lot of work, because this is a thriller without any substance. He does manage to give us some negligible “thrills” – but the movie was doomed from the start.

On another note, the subtitling in this film is bad. We do not know if it was done by the film producers or the streaming platform, but it just made the whole experience even worse somehow – when the movie is already pretty bad.

Highlights?

Few Scenes Featuring K. Manikandan

Story Premise

Drawbacks?

Very Noticeable Plot Holes

Dumb Plot Devices Bad Subtitling

Did I Enjoy It?

Not really.

Will You Recommend It?

No. Even if you are bored.

Netrikkan MovieReview by Binged Bureau