Victim review: Great directors and cast, mixed bag of short stories

Nasser as the 400-year-old siddhar (swami) in director Chimba Devan's fantasy story ‘Kottai Paaku Vathalum, Mottai Maadi Siddharum’. (Screen grab)

Tamil anthology series Victim - Who is next?, comprising four episodes, dropped on SonyLIV on August 5. The series talks about how people fall prey to situations and circumstances either physically, emotionally or financially.

Four well-known Tamil directors have directed the four episodes- Pa Ranjith helms ‘Dhammam’; Venkat Prabhu directs ‘Confession; Rajesh M directs 'Mirrage' and Chimbu Devan ' Kottai Paaku Vathalum, Mottai Maadi Siddharum’.

SonyLIV launched its Tamil Originals vertical last month. The OTT platform has since released original series like Meme Boys in Tamil.

All four short stories fall into different genres and feature actors like Nasser, Thambi Ramaiah, Natraj, Priya Bhavani Shankar, Kalaiarasan, Guru Somasundaram, Prasanna, Amala Paul and Krish, among others.

‘Dhammam’ by Pa Ranjith is definitely the best of the four short stories. Pa Ranjith has stuck to his regular trope of caste politics and social hierarchies that prominently regulate relationships, especially in villages. Guna (Guru Somasundaram) runs his family, consisting of his wife and daughter Kema, off the money he makes from the produce he gets off the acre of land he owns. But Komatha’s (an upper-class woman who has a herd of cows) nephew Sekar (Kalaiarasan) wants to forcibly acquire the land from Guna. What happens between the two of them is what this story is all about and both Guru and Kalaiarasan have performed well. Kema’s actions in the story are a teaching moment here. While ‘Dhammam’ talks about caste, it also talks about humanity and Buddha’s teaching of ‘dhamma’ or the ultimate truth or reality and about being wise in the moment rather than taking refuge in an unknown entity such as God.

Director Venkat Prabhu’s ‘Confession’ is a thriller which stars Amala Paul, Prasanna and Krish. It’s all about extracting confessions from people, and probably along the lines of how the truth will set you free. However, confessing has a dangerous side to it in this short story which sees a twist in the climax. Though she is a talented actor, Amala Paul seems to be getting typecast as the bold sex symbol of a woman, thanks to her film Aadai where she had a nude scene. For Prasanna this role is a cakewalk but Krish is unable to pull off his. The singer-turned-actor comes across as artificial and trying too hard to be the guy living in London speaking with an American accent strangely. The major flaw in this short is logic - the story starts off well but the climax and twist are a major letdown and just not convincing.

Chimba Devan loves to dabble in fantasy. In ‘Kottai Paaku Vathalum, Mottai Maadi Siddharum’, he has written a fantasy thriller that revolves around a siddhar (swami), played by Nasser, who has reportedly been alive for 400 years. Thambi Ramaiah plays a journalist likely to lose his job, thanks to the pandemic, and starts to dig into this story to deliver a journalistic scoop to retain his job. Does he discover who this siddhar is and retain his job? This short story is probably the weakest in the anthology as it lacks a strong narrative and doesn’t engage you. Given the fine cast it had, the director has just not made use of their talent.

The fourth short story is a psychological thriller by director Rajesh M starring Priya Bhavani Shankar and Nataraj (Natty). A young woman IT professional (Priya) comes to Chennai from Bangalore on work and is booked into a resort on ECR. Natty plays the manager of the resort and he narrates to her an incident that had taken place there a while back. What happens through the night that she stays there is the crux of the story. The performances by Priya and Natty are good and the thriller is effective to a certain extent.

Like all anthologies that have been released so far on Indian OTT platforms, Victim – Who is next? is a mixed bag as well from these four directors.