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In 2018, Vishnu Vishal tasted a career-defining success with Ratsasan, the hit psycho-thriller film that was so chic that when he returned with another entry in the genre — Aaryan, which hit theatres today — he felt the need to make it loud and clear that this isn’t a Ratsasan. One gets the sentiment; most of the time, like in the case of sequels, such an attempt might succumb under the pressure to surpass the previous film. The inverse is possible too — if you are a hopeful cinema aficionado, you might wish for the successor to battle out such expectations and still stand tall on its own.
In the case of Aaryan, the film needn’t concern itself with such worries; the psycho-thriller is its own ratsasan (re: demon). The film, directed by debutant Praveen K, is an ambitiously written story with a criminally underwhelming screenplay and treatment, along with tacky stretches that test your patience.
Take, for instance, the opening scene that transpires inside a television studio. After a politician cancels his appointment at the last minute, the producers of a popular TV show hosted by acclaimed journalist Nayana (Shraddha Srinath in a forgettable outing) resort to inviting a popular actor who is in the thick of a controversy. In a Joker-esque twist, a man in the audience (Selvaraghavan as Azhagar, the sole highlight) takes control of the studio and holds everyone hostage with a gun he managed to slip in through the security.
Azhagar declares that six innocent souls will be killed over the next five days, the first of which he murders at the studio. Who is he? What are his demands? How will the cops prevent these murders? On a conceptual level, this feels like a riveting intro, a feeling that reaches its pinnacle in a twist at the end of the sequence. We will come to the twist in a bit, but the way the sequence is written and staged screams amateur. The digs at sensationalist journalism and the state of stardom that the characters mouth off about do not feel organic, and the staging of the scene lacks the intended urgency.
Aaryan (Tamil)
Director: Praveen K
Cast: Vishnu Vishal, Selvaraghavan, Shraddha Srinath, Maanasa Choudhary
Runtime: 136 minutes
Storyline: A serial-killer threatens to kill six people in the most shocking fashion to achieve a ‘perfect crime’. A cat-and-mouse game ensues.
Aaryan is one of those films that collapse from within. Everything rests on that one inventive sleight of hand at the centre in an otherwise run-of-the-mill serial killer story — the twist that seems to have compelled Bollywood perfectionist superstar Aamir Khan to mull over it for hours, according to Vishnu. To be fair, it does sound like an ambitious challenge that very few writers could crack.
However, the effect wanes over time because nothing that follows matches up to that thrill. Arivudai Nambi (Vishnu in a monotonous performance), the DSP handling the case, investigates the killings, but neither the modus operandi of the killer nor the investigations — which make up a big chunk of the narrative — boast any flair or novelty.
As has been the case with many recent Tamil films, Aaryan caves in to the need to become a vessel for didactic social messages — it’s, again, a bluff genre filmmakers have long opted for in a bid to secure the bare minimum by appeasing those with a weak emotional quotient. It is certainly a bad time to be an all-good, selfless, noble person, but the way Aaryan makes this point is one for the Hall of Cringe.
Vishnu Vishal in a still from ‘Aaryan’
In fact, if anything, the very curveball the screenplay mounts so much material on — and haplessly lugs around for the entirety of the runtime — screams for a quirkier treatment, which only becomes more apparent in the pockets of dark humour the film forgets to sustain its lenses on.
While one feels compelled to note the eerie environment that inhabits the film — and an intent to make the experience visually and aurally immersive — the many baffling editing lapses and off-putting ideas (such as a trans character portrayed as a woke token) make you care less. Perhaps some material could have been salvaged had at least Vishnu’s lead cop gotten a shade or two more — all we get instead is patchily written sentimentality about his divorce (his ex-wife is played by Maanasa Choudhary). One feels bad for Vishnu since there just isn’t enough on paper to make his Nambi feel real, and all he does in much of the film is pout his lips and narrow his eyes.
In one of the most unintentionally hilarious moments in the film, a man tells the killer, who we know seals his fate later, that something “is worth dying for,” a phrase that’s keenly taken note of. Given all the efforts lead star Vishnu put in for his physical transformation, and the hopes he pinned on the film for years, Aaryan wasn’t really worth dying for. It certainly isn’t a Ratsasan — a strawberry to that, oh, sorry, ‘raspberry.’
Aaryan is currently running in theatres
Published – October 31, 2025 01:49 pm IST
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‘Aaryan’ movie review: A dreary psycho thriller that collapses from within
