The concept of Maaveeran is downright brilliant. As the timid comic strip writer is forced to be as brave as the hero he created, there’s something here that encourages its audience to listen to the yearnings already inside them. It allows for some cartoonish comedy that comes across as earnest. However, there’s a certain hesitancy in the writing that makes the film’s second half a letdown. The film sticks too long to its protagonist’s cowardice that there’s so little time to wrap everything up. It’s still entertaining till the end, but a better sense of pacing would have kept the first half’s riveting comedy, and would have made a better case for being a hero.
After a head injury, cowardly newspaper cartoonist Sathya hears a voice in his mind, foretells events and puts him in precarious situations and forces him to take on a corrupt politician.
After his accident, cowardly comic strip artist Sathya starts to hear the voice of the action hero he created narrating his boring life as an epic tale. This voice urges him to take on the corrupt politician in their neighborhood.
With the premise, there’s a meta aspect to Maaveeran that can be quite funny. Sathya hears a narrator only he and the audience can hear, and while the narration are the standard phrases he himself would write into his comic strips, it’s funny to see him try to argue and outwit the narrator in order to escape the voice’s command. However, the pacing and structure makes Maaveeran feel uneven. Two thirds into the movie, nearing already two hours, Sathya is still trying to fight the narration, that, while totally nerve wracking, clearly says things that are in his best interest, saving his life consistently. There’s a point here about not blindly following politicians, but in trying to make that point, it turns Sathya from an understandable coward, to someone who’s downright idiotic and foolish. In doing so, it fails to fulfill the promise given by the fun and entertaining first half.
You know that narrator in George of the Jungle? The one that messes around with the henchmen after they complain? This is that, but make it an action film.
