Agilan Review 

Bharath Vijayakumar

The first notable thing about N Kalyanakrishnan’s Agilan is that it is a focused film. The plot that is set in and around a harbour, gets underway right from the first frame. What we have in the first half is how Agilan (Jayam Ravi), a crane operator cum henchman cum hero of the film, schemingly rises to become the ‘King of the Indian Ocean’. This is the tag given to someone who controls the movement of goods (legal and illegal) across the seas. Agilan has no rules and all that matters to him is to rise to the top of the ladder.

We have always had this one-man army kind of stories but post KGF, the similarities to that film are striking. The first half of Agilan too is ‘KGFesque’ in certain ways. Unlike the recent Michael which almost felt like a poor imitation of KGF, Agilan doesn’t literally borrow its style of execution from KGF but when you see a ruthless angry young man rocketing to the top leaving behind his bosses, you are bound to draw comparisons. But the issue in Agilan is that despite it being focussed, it is hardly interesting or exciting. Apart from the protagonist, none of the characters even register with you. Except the sequence leading up to the interval there is no real grip over the proceedings in the first half. Dubbing issues and performances from the non-Tamil speaking cast hurt the film badly. You hope that things would get better when the actual plot unravels in the second half.

 Jayam Ravi is earnest as always and tries to keep you invested. But there is very little support from the rest.

Bottomline:

Agilan is focused but is neither interesting nor exciting. It is the message that should have been loud and clear, but sadly it is only the background score that is loud.