Picking up from the closing lines of where ‘Asuran’ left off, Dhanush-starrer ‘Vaathi’ explores the educational institution in South India, its privatisation at the end of the last century and the impact that has had on its students. However, unlike the aforementioned film, ‘Vaathi’ does not take sufficient care in its storytelling or possess the nuance to properly tackle the subject matter. 

‘Vaathi’ follows a group of students who stumble upon a set of video cassettes featuring a Maths teacher who clearly explains an equation they had been struggling with at school priorly. The trio embark on a journey to identify the mystery man, which unravels a story of the radical teacher Balamurugan, played by Dhanush, who butts heads with the head of the educational institution played by Samuthirakanni. The film’s core message is to stop treating education like a product intended purely for profit. However, in doing so, the film treats itself like a product, providing a template structure with the usual masala ingredients. Instances such as the use of video cassettes highlight the didactic nature of Tamil cinema, however this only causes the film to fold in on itself as it more explicitly reveals its true intentions. 

Most of the cast seem to have provided the bare minimum for the project. Dhanush breezes through the role, as it holds no moral complications he would have to visually illustrate. Samuthirakanni’s villain is equally one-note. Samyuktha’s turn as Meenakshi is sadly yet another addition to the tacked-on heroine required for someone to admire and root for the hero, as well as the obligatory love song. Ken Karunas turns in a decent performance as the student Muthu, continuing his good work from ‘Asuran.’ 

The cinematography is not particularly noteworthy. The visuals are uninteresting, with constantly bright lighting and bland colour schemes. A scene of children entering the school gates as the hero is dressed in a light blue shirt is reminiscent of the recent and better education based film, Vijay’s ‘Master.’ Plenty of slow motion is used to highlight Dhanush’s heroic antics. 

GV Prakash Kumar’s score consists of more lows than highs. The song ‘Kalangudhe’ is a very overt attempt at twisting the audience’s heartstrings, hoping to be the album’s ‘Vidukathaiya’ from 1995’s ‘Muthu.’ The scene accompanying the song is the film’s biggest misstep, with a showy display of melodrama. ‘Vaa Vaathi', the biggest hit of the album, suffers from shoddy lyrics penned by the star of the show Dhanush himself. 

Overall, despite a decent core concept, ‘Vaathi’ fails to land due to its contradictory internal thought process. If writer/director Venky Atluri had thought through the lesson he wished to teach, he would have understood that the standard formulaic ‘masala’ treatment would not work. Many films from the Tamil industry focus solely on the message it wishes to teach, and overlook the craft required to adequately send said message across to its audience. Similar films I would recommend instead are 2019’s ‘Asuran’, 2021’s ‘Master’ and 2011’s ‘Vaagai Sooda Vaa’. 

Krishna's rating: 2.5 stars

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Official trailer for film below.