“If everyone in the nation becomes a beggar, from whom will he rob?” “Why should the victims be scared when the perpetrators aren’t? In a democratic nation, the one on top must be scared of the one below and not the other way around.” “The old man who taught me bravery also taught me that while we can use a cane to support ourselves, we must also learn when to use it to whack someone when needed.”

These are some of the many political dialogues that are uttered in actor-producer Vijay Antony’s Shakthi Thirumugan, a political thriller with a fantastic premise and grand execution that tapers in effect. Now, a reader who hasn’t watched the film might be sceptical of such straightforward political sloganeering, but the good news is that this Arun Prabu Purushothaman-directed film is backed by some solid ideas and engaging screenwriting that hardly anything falls out of place, at least for the most part.

Say what you want, Vijay Antony knows the pulse of the audience, and he deserves credit for his conviction over the masala template. Time and again, the actor has shown a knack for picking the right script and extracting the best out of a director to tell a good mainstream film with a Vijay Antony-esque twist. And after 2021’s political masala drama Kodiyil Oruvan, directed by Ananda Krishnan of Metro fame, the actor has once again collaborated with a filmmaker to make a film that is unlike anything they had done before. In fact, an uninformed viewer might be surprised to know that the director behind Shakti Thirumagan is the same man who made films like Aruvi and Vaazh.

Vijay Antony in a still from ‘Shakthi Thirumagan’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Even the tonality of the film takes you by surprise, and Shakthi Thirumagan races through its set-up at breakneck speed, at times almost making you wish for a breather to take it all in. We are introduced to the world that Kittu (Antony) has built for himself. Shadowing as a pimp, he is secretly operating his own government as a lobbyist with pull so deep that he could even facilitate the transfer of an Inspector General of Police! Kittu just needs a few phone calls to get the job done, and he helps everyone without bias — from an old man who lost his lifetime savings to a bribe, and a swimming athlete who can’t afford necessary sporting gear, to a judge seeking to launder his black money, and a personal assistant of a party leader who wants to gain her respect.

It’s a shadow governance that operates with the help of mutual favours, but Kittu’s real talent is in pulling the right strings to get the job done without raising any alarms. The film’s sharp and slick pattern of editing also works in its favour, because by the time you process how this well-oiled machinery works, the job is already done and Kittu is onto the next. Arun Prabu seamlessly introduces the many characters who take pivotal positions in this world (it truly is heartwarming to see Cell Murugan get a full-fledged role after a long time; the actor plays Kittu’s manager Maaran). Also, moments that a different director would have felt compelled to hog onto and embellish — like Kittu’s romance with his wife Vembu (Trupti Ravindra) — Arun Prabu handles with modesty.

The first half of Shakthi Thirumagan sails like a theme park ride, as we see Kittu level up steadily with the stakes getting higher and higher. Eventually, he goes out of his depth, ending up in the crosshairs of his boss, Abhyankkar Srinivasa Swamy (Sunil Kripalani), a nefarious industrialist who has several central and state ministers in his pocket. Soon, Kittu ends up in a major complication — after all, it is necessary to throw such an obstacle at such an overpowered protagonist — and you begin to wonder if he could ever escape this quagmire. Unfortunately, everything goes amiss for Shakthi Thirumagan from here.

The writing begins to lose both the punch and the conviction we found in the first half. Hackneyed ideas, like using a cyberhacker to hack into public systems, further dampen the proceedings, but the real trouble is how preachy it all gets. Sure, we get the customary flashback, but must it be filled to the brim with so many political punchlines? At times, you begin to wonder if the same message could have been told in the same cadence and style of the political thriller that it initially posed to be. The same film that believed in its audiences’ intellect to read between the lines, turns expository in its latter half.

Don’t get me wrong, the message delivered is noble — Indian society is indeed a crocodile-infested lake where only the corrupt and apathetic 1% can live scot-free, and it’s gut-wrenching to think about how there are many mediators who, unlike Kittu, only think about filling their own bellies. However, what should have been an epilogue becomes a long, didactic sequence. A sermon addressing the gallery in a poorly staged scene becomes the tipping point as Shakthi Thirumagan ends with a limper.

During the intermission break of the film, I heard a moviegoer compare the effect of the first half to that of some classic Tamil political dramas like Mudhalvan, Gentleman and Indian. If only Arun Prabu had cracked a better resolution for this well-written premise, we might have gotten the Indian that the current generation of Tamil audiences deserves.

Shakthi Thirumagan is currently running in theatres

Published – September 19, 2025 06:50 pm IST