Ratsasan Movie Review

Cast: Vishnu Vishal, Amala Paul, Radha Ravi, Kaali Venkat, Karunakaran, Munishkanth & others

Cinematography: PV Shankar

Music: Ghibran

Editing: San Lokesh

Art Director: Gopi Anand

Written & Directed by Ram Kumar

Produced by: Axess Film Factory

Distribution: Trident Arts

Release Date: 05-10-2018

Run Time: 2 Hours 32 Minutes

Four years after his critically and commercially acclaimed debut in fantasy comedy Mundasupatti, director Ram Kumar has returned with an absorbing psychological crime thriller in his sophomore directorial through Ratsasan, which is headlined by a career-best performance from Vishnu Vishal.

It’s incredible how focussed the screenplay of Ratsasan stays from the beginning of the film. Barring a few shots, every frame appears quite indispensable to the story. Ratsasan quietly distinguishes itself from the cliched serial-killer movies through the world Ram Kumar creates with gut-wrenching uneasiness. There’s always a surge of anxiety in the story, which is highly needed for a not-so-crowded genre film like this.

From meticulously establishing the characters to organically planting twists and turns at regular intervals without any contrived red-herrings, the screenplay is penned with great attention to detail. Usually, in thrillers, filmmakers will be easily tempted to place a twist irrespective of how exaggerated it could feel or how foolish it may sound, only to drive home the message that they are more brilliant than the viewers, who play guessing games while watching the film. However, Ram Kumar has demonstrated an understated aggression in transporting the audiences to his world and played all his cards smartly with three solid, edge-of-the-seat twists in the story.

The flashback portion, an evitable part in the psycho-crime thrillers, usually plays the make or break role in the film’s success. Ratsasan has an extraordinarily well-written and executed backstory in the second half, especially the last thirty odd minutes which is replete with blood-curdling moments and some sterling performances.

Vishnu Vishal has once again proved that he has a keen eye for content-driven films by flagging off Ratsasan, which is undoubtedly yet another feather in his cap.

Ghibran’s riveting background score is the central pillar of the film. His score superbly uplifts a lot of crucial scenes and delivers hair-raising moments at a bevy of instances effortlessly. His re-recording is one of the main reasons behind the neatly-paced momentum of the film.

Toting up, Ratsasan is the best psycho-crime thriller to come out of Tamil cinema in the last few decades or so. Packed with spell-binding moments, Ratsasan is a wholly enthralling genre film.

Ratsasan Movie Review Rating: 4/5

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