Hitler Review - Novel Intent Executed in a Tiring Manner!

Ashwin Ram

Hitler is an action drama starring Vijay Antony, Riya Suman and Gautam Menon in lead roles. The film is directed by Dana.S.A of Vaanam Kottatum fame.

Premise:

Crores of election funds are robbed by a stranger who is also murdering who were carrying the cash bags. The Police investigate to find the man and the Politicians hunt to get their money back. What happens in the search forms the crux of the story.

Writing/ Direction:

The establishments are made in a lethargic manner, by introducing the characters one by one with absolutely no coherency or craft. The situations happening are old-school and follows Shankar’s Gentleman template which came out three decades back, familiarity isn’t the issue, not enough substance in writing is the major problem. Filled with many unwanted fight scenes and wasted too much time on the romantic track which has nothing to do with the core story. The entire first half relies on the big interval reveal, but the twist is easily predictable much before that. The plot and the backstory is convincing, but the screenplay has to be tight to meet the impact, which has gone haywire here. Gautham Menon portions are a big relief in the first half, his portions have enough stuff to engage and hold some sort of interest alive. Thankfully he has quite a pleasing amount of screen space, but that sustains only till interval before the hero starts making a fool out of him. The villain track and the political angle also have a certain level of momentum. But because of the major elements being dull, these small moments don’t really take-off well. The emotional impact is also flat, the exact opposite of what the director intended.

Performances:

Subtle act by Vijay Antony, he is fine with facial expressions but could have been more physically active especially during the fight sequences. Riya Suman has a purpose, but it was hidden until pre-climax for no reason, adding to which her acting was too plastic in the love scenes where she has to be commanding. Full-fledged role for Gautham Menon, there was an intriguing factor around his character till the very end. Taanakkaran director Tamizh does what he is best at, a loud villain role which was like a cakewalk for him. Reddin Kingsley’s presence was irritating with the comedy quotient being extremely weak. Nothing much to do for Vivek Prasanna.

Technicalities:

Despite the worst placements, Vivek-Mervin have done their job correctly by delivering decent songs and a pretty good background score trying to fix the flaws in the situations. Camera work is disturbing in many frames mainly because of the excessive usage of backlight. Tacky editing, random scene orders and zero effort has been put in for cut-transitions. Lazy stunt choreography as the actions of the artists look very artificial.

Bottomline

A template commercial saga which has the Robinhood trope with an emotional backstory. The difference is, the majority of elements don’t click here, Gautham Menon’s investigation angle and the political portions are the saviour.

Rating - 2.25/ 5