Auto Shankar Review - A Powerful Story Stranded With An Underwhelming Writing & Narration

Suhansid Srikanth

Auto Shankar, as a series is bit clumsy to map out. The purpose.. The intention to tell the story need not be necessarily judged on moral grounds! But, here it lacks the humane touch one would expect in a story like this! Unlike Sacred Games or a Pudhupettai.. the man is neither shown as a wounded demon nor as a fallen angel! Whatever you feel for the character is out of the real life aura you keep thinking about!

Appani Ravi delivers a scintillating performance as Auto Shankar. The 'Angamaly Diaries' actor convincingly portrays the gruesome character as raw and rustic as possible despite his hold on the language. Arjun Chidambaram who plays Inspector Kadhiravan shines as much as he could in an important role that's not so effectively written on screen! Swayam Siddha (Chandrika) reminds you a lot of Sonia Aggarwal in Selvaraghavan films.

The series really kickstarts only after the initial 4 episodes. Until then.. the establishments and impactless setups keeps taking time. What kills it all is the wavering direction and lack of technical support to consistently hold a mood and visual ambience for this ruthlessly cold story. Every sequence sounds jolted apart from each other! Half of these problems arise out of writing. Scenes miss that punch that will gulp an impact in you! No closures leave you in awestruck!

Given how AutoShankar is one of the deadliest of gangster goons Madras / for that matter, Tamilnadu or India has ever seen.. none of the deaths that happen in the story make you really fear the brutal terror he is!

The emotional archs barely connect the ends. We wish we get to know what fucked it up all for Shankar. Like how Ganesh Gaitonde's rise is sketched in Sacred Games. Instead, we get a vague flashback sequence about bad parents at the end that fails to sum it up for what he has become!

Another let down is the one sequence that really triggers the game.. when Shankar is denied milk from a shop. Inspector Kadhiravan hits him hard and we see this back story coming up in middle of nowhere after many years. Yes! The revenge keeps smoking always! But here the pop-up is oddly switched on! We don't get why Kadhiravan would say something like.. 'If you can't feed your child.. better strangle its neck or make it to beg on streets!'. The character doesn't seems to have it in him despite how the lines are uttered with the conviction!

There is sloppy editing starting a scene randomly and diluting a powerful scene with multiple cuts. The visual tone (very much, 'a serial like' at many places) of the film struggles to blend with the world the story is in! But.. One aspect that literally put me off is the music! Arrol Corelli doesn't seem to care much about what's happening on screen or the emotional turmoil the characters are undergoing. No matter what, he doesn't stop playing the non-sync bgm that he starts a scene with. It not only put you off but just kills whatever mood the story tries hard to develop till that point.

I know the popular woke opinion is.. "Ketta vaarthai pesuradhu onnum thappillaiye!". I don't mind characters swearing or using cuss words in our films or web series. But the point is.. it should be done convincingly and blended organically with the dialogues so that it doesn't stick out as a sore thumb to just project itself as a raw / realistic story! And it is hightime we should realise that Sacred Games / Gangs of Wasseypur / Raman Raghav has turned into what it is because of sheer effective writing, humane perspective of the characters, performances that shake grey shades of minds along with impeccable direction and not just because of the 'cuss words'!

The parts that one really gets fascinated about is highly rushed up. Like how Chandrika turns the table overnight and switch sides. It is not treated as Reema Sen's character in Gangs of Wasseypur or that of Andrea's in VadaChennai. We don't get one good reason to connect why would she turn against Shankar! She might have plans to rise into power! But the series doesn't want to explore the woman / human she is! And, in that sense, even Shankar is not explored as a human but merely as this terror who committed horrendous murders.