Mahesh Babu’s first-ever bilingual (Tamil/Telugu) and probably his biggest release is one of those movies I feel bad to critique. There’s so much effort that’s been put in by the actors, director, and crew, all of which is visible on screen.
But, a film is basically a director’s attempt at selling me his viewpoint and here’s where I disagree with AR Murugadoss’ Spyder.
Boom Boom Bam Bam!
This is the title song/hero entry song of Spyder. This about sums up what’s really good about the movie. Murugadoss is brilliant when it comes to action sequences. He knows exactly how much gore to display, which sound effect to put in, and which close up to show, in order to build up the tensile strength of a shot.
But Spyder is more about brain than brawn. Murugadoss couldn’t pull off what he did with Akira, or Ghajini, when it comes to choreographed mayhem, despite having Peter Hein (action director of Raavan, Baahubali) on board.
The roller coaster fight scene, which was shot over thirty gruelling days, and a left Mahesh Babu with a damaged knee, fails to translate on screen.
Feminism is Fine, But Where’s the Female?
Rakul Preet Singh is one of the most popular actresses in Telugu right now. She looks beautiful, dances well, and can display a range of characters right from cute, to sexy all the way to smoking hot. This description of the ideal female lead is chauvinistic - to put it mildly - right? That’s because it is.
This is basically how a female lead may be described in literally all of the 150 - 200 (approx) releases each in Tamil and Telugu. Recent notable exceptions are Baahubali: The Conclusion, Vivegam, Magalir Mattum, and even they have issues. Magalir Mattum is cool though.
The female lead in the movie plays a medical student, who binge watches four hours of porn, and now wants someone who’s not into ‘love’ to help her get to 98%, from 96%.
A sexually aware female, looking for no-strings-attached sex is all fine. But then that’s ALL the female lead does in the 2 hour twenty minute film. Every dialogue is only about how she’d like to have sex with the hero, and how they end up not doing it, until eventually they both fall in love. Also, Murugadoss gets the ‘friends-with-benefits’ concept all wrong. There is no attempt on either side at working on the ‘friends’ part. Ever.
Spyder takes the help of seven middle-aged housewives in saving ten hostages and capturing the villain. That sequence was fun to watch, though completely unbelievable. That the women found the courage to carry out the operation, is endearing and made for a few tears, cheers and claps. But they suddenly also find the muscle and flexibility to scale electric poles, jump across walls and climb roofs. And that spoils the whole thing.
Spyder has no real women. Every female on screen is either a blow-up-doll, background dancer or a cliche.
Channeling Heath Ledger’s Joker
Many actors, including Suicide Squad’s Jared Leto have tried it. Vikram tried it in Irumugan, when he played the transgender nemesis.
But actor/director S J Surya is probably the best of the lot. The only reason I compare his performance to Heath Ledger’s is because the director has ‘lifted’ a few scenes from The Dark Knight, especially the climax.
Mahesh Babu isn’t wearing a cape, but everything else looks the same; batman/Mahesh Babu saves a bunch of people, then hangs on for life at the edge of a building.
SJ Surya returns to the screen as an actor after a 16 year hiatus from films. He is brilliant in every frame, even when he goes over the top. I muted out parts of the trailer and shut my ears in parts during the movie, just to watch Surya minus the thumping BGM. He’s scary, even on mute.
There is a streak of sadism in all of us (4%) according to the film. Surya’s character has 15%. In a sense, he is the personification of our sadism.
Telugu or Tamil?
So, would I recommend Spyder to you? Depends on your mother tongue.
If it’s Telugu, and you’re a Mahesh Babu fan, definitely go for it. If you’re not really keen on Mahesh Babu, skip it. Some recipes taste better at home and not in a hotel.
If you’re Tamil, watch the film. Despite banal music and a confusion in the ‘advise’ that the film wants to give, it’s mostly pretty engaging. There are a lot of weird and interesting ideas inside Spyder that’ll give you something to talk about.
It’s not quintessentially a Mahesh Babu film, since the humour and the sarcasm, which he alone can deliver with a straight face, is missing. But it’s still a good blind date with the actor.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)