Mersal (2017)

A magician and a doctor attempt to expose the corruption at the heart of India's medical industry.

Director:

Atlee Kumar

Writers:

Atlee Kumar (story), Atlee Kumar (screenplay)

Stars:

Joseph Vijay, Aakshath Das, S.J. Suryah

13 wins & 8 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Joseph Vijay	...	Vetrimaaran / Maaran / Vetri
Aakshath Das	...	Maaran
S.J. Suryah	...	Dr. Daniel Arokyaraj (as S.J. Surya)
Kajal Aggarwal	...	Anupallavi
Samantha Ruth Prabhu	...	Tara
Nithya Menen	...	Aishwarya Vetrimaaran (as Nithya Menon)
Vadivelu	...	Vadivu (as Vadivel)
Kovai Sarala	...	Sarala
Sathyan	...	Police Officer
Motta Rajendran	...	(as Rajendran)
Yogi Babu	...	Nolan
Kaali Venkat	...	Auto Driver
Hareesh Peradi	...	Dr. Arjun Zachariah
Devatharshini
Surekha Vani

Storyline

Maaran, a sincere doctor who fights against corruption and Vettri a magician who is out for a revenge. Both of them are estranged brothers and once they come together, they get to know about their common enemy, Daniel, who had killed their father and mother.

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Plot Keywords:

magician | doctor | wrestler | fight | magic | 

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Taglines:

Festival Soon

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Genres:

Action | Thriller

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

The first look poster of the Telugu version of this film, 'Adirindhi', became the most liked Telugu first look on Twitter (with 27 000 Likes in 1 week), marginally beating the total number of likes of that of A.R. Murgadoss' 'SPYder' (26 900 Likes) which released two months prior. This is surprising to many in both Kollywood and Tollywood, since this film did not receive as much anticipation or press before in Telugu as SPYder, a Telugu-Tamil bilingual, received in both languages. And although Vijay is a very popular face among Telugu audiences, his market in that language is not considered too firmly established as of yet.

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Goofs

There is inconsistency regarding Vetri's year of birth throughout the movie. As per Maaran it is 1984, as per Daniel it is 1987 and as per Salim Ghosh it is 1990.

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Quotes

Maaran: Medicine of high quality, free for humanity... that is my dream.

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Crazy Credits

The title card of the film is shown after the opening scenes.

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Alternate Versions

In Malaysia, around a minute of cuts were made to violence for a P13 rating

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Connections

References 36 Vayadhinile (2015)

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Soundtracks

Aalaporaan Thamizhan
Performed by Kailash Kher, Sathya Prakash, A.V. Pooja
Music A.R. Rahman

User Reviews

"Thalapathy Show All The Way"

'Atlee' has become a dependable brand with just 2 films 'Raja Rani' and 'Theri',both which were efficiently packed masala entertainers that managed to gain humongous success at the Kollywood box- office.Naturally,the expectations were sky-high from the combo of Vijay and Atlee who were expected to repeat the success of Theri,which I felt was to some extent a slightly better movie altogether on comparison with this much more predictable mass masala entertainer.

An elaborate affair running around 170 minutes,Mersal has all the ingredients that one conjoins with a festival entertainer,heavily relying upon the charisma of Vijay who ensures that the loopholes in the screenplay is overshadowed by his massive screen presence up to a good extent.K.Vijayendra Prasad who's known for his epic mass entertainers like 'Baahubali','Bajrangi Bhaijaan' and 'Samarasimha Reddy' has stick on to the basic formulas of a typical masala flick,the result being an average to above average cinematic experience in a nutshell.

Atlee's pattern of narrative reminded me of his mentor Shankar's 2006 blockbuster 'Shivaji',revamped with plot elements similar to A.R Murugadoss's Vijayakanth starrer 'Ramana'[2002] and a conclusion upon the lines of yet another Murugadoss flick Katthi [2014].The introductory portions of the movie was impressive followed by a slightly weaker 45-50 minutes which luckily ended with a thrilling interval block.The second half holds the flashback portion of 'Thalapathy' which is highly emotional and has moments to connect with the native audience in particular.

The fact that the easily predictable narrative could have been trimmed by at least 15-20 minutes cannot be blanked out and hadn't there been a solid performance by Thalapathy Vijay as the saving grace,the movie could have been rather a mediocre experience altogether.The plethora of hard-hitting punch dialogues added with a good social message towards the end was effective in increasing the emotional connect of the movie.

As mentioned before Vijay was at his awesome best throughout the movie and succeeded in portraying the roles entrusted on him with required perfection.The pick among the female cast was Nithya Menon who shined with an energetic performance.Samantha and Kajal Agarwal didn't have much role to play except for being part in two songs that didn't make any impact in the narrative whatsoever.'Vaigai Puyal' Vadivelu gave an impressive supporting performance .S J Surya's villain role was too stereotypical and lacked necessary detailing.

Songs by maestro A.R.R ranged from mediocre to good with the pick among the songs being 'Aalaporaan Tamizhan' and 'Nee Thaane' that were picturized well by Atlee.The background score of the movie wasn't exceptional but nonetheless decent.Frames by debutante G K Vishnu were catchy and edits by Ruben was fine in general.

Overall,Mersal is a satisfactory festive flick that ensures a paisa vasool one time watch for those who have a taste for masala entertainers.

Details

Country:

India

Language:

Tamil

Release Date:

18 October 2017 (USA)

Also Known As:

Zapped

Filming Locations:

Macedonia

Box Office

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$2,287,182

Company Credits

Production Co:

Sony Music India, Sri Thenandal Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

172 min

Color:

Color