Why is Master (Tamil) movie special?

Master as film is not that special. It is a decent movie that makes for a good viewing experience. It has all the makings of a cult movie if not a classic. The film is probably going to repeat over and over on media. The film could have used a lot of trimming and fine-tuning, but it is not off mark at any stage. The film is not great but it is never boring.

That said, Master is an important movie in understanding how Actor Vijay studies his audience and learns. It is fascinating if you think about it. There is a chance that I am way off on this, but I am fairly sure that I am calling this right.

Vijay has had an interesting career and at many places you will see that he kind of reboots and rises to set new standards for what to expect from him. When I say standards, take it with a pinch of salt and not as Kamal’s or MGR’s or Rajni’s standards.

IMO, there are 3–4 important films in Vijay’s career.

1. Poove Unakahaa

2. Gilli

3. Kaavalan

4. Thupaaki

5. Master

Yep, Master joins this list. Let me explain why. But before that, very quickly lets see why I think these films make the list in the first place.

Poove Unakaha is a brilliant movie. It is a family movie that has racy screenplay, interesting twists and superb humour. It established Vijay as a guy who can shoulder a strong story and deliver a family movie (till then Vijay was a midnight masala hero, in the words of thalaivan Blue Sattai). With this film, Vijay understood that families make or break a movie. Glamour and sex appeal only take you so far.

With Gilli, Vijay understood that along with story, a strong villain character with almost equal importance to him will bring more business. From here, Vijay spent time in making sure he had at least decent villains. The film too convinced him that less punch dialogues (after the yawn-worthy Youth and Bhagavathy) and more powerful, situation-oriented dialogues work. He did not drop punch lines for a very long time, but you get the drift.

After Gilli, Vijay kept towing the mass route. This worked for a long time till ATM’s flop. He had lost his way a little bit around this time. He began using too much glamour, vulgar dialogues, excessive punch lines - basically a downward spiral. After the flop of Sura, Vijay understood that his mass movies were fast becoming irrelevant. His attempts to copy Suriya’s stunts from Ayan backfired. This opened him to another dimension - strong creators. So far Vijay had been hiring yes-men and technically poor creators like Prabhu deva, Barathan, Ramana and Perarsu. His search led to technically better creators like Siddique, Shankar and ARM. After looking at the response to Kaavalan and Nanban, two films where he ditched mass elements altogether - Vijay was convinced to never compromise on technical aspects.

With Thupaaki - he understood his stardom. Now his stardom worked without over-the-top mass scenes. He did not need Rajni or Suriya or Mahesh Babu for inspiration. He had his own brand of style and swagger. His fans now voted with their wallets to quality movies. From here, his films went up a notch - best camera work money could buy, better stunts, more stylish choreography and good CGI (excuse Puli here please, I don’t know what they s thinking).

His budgets were eating into profits. He drew a huge salary from 2014’s Kaththi(bankrolled by Lyca) and thought huge salaries were the way. He started demanding them from all producers. After Sarkar, Mersal and Bigil - it was clear that his market was slumping a wee bit. I guess he put down some points:

1. Find new age directors

2. Reduce budget and/or salary

3. Hire a strong second actor à la Jilla, Nanban, Thalaiva.

4. Keep your ear to the ground

With Master - he has tried everything under sun to find out what clicks. He hired a young, exciting director, went with a decent story, ditched mass elements, hired the best actor he could buy as his villain and gave everyone freedom to do anything they wanted with his time. This is a rare movie where he takes off his shirt multiple times. Of course, he did make sure some things went his way.

A lot of people are saying he miscalculated the presence of a powerhouse like Vijay Sethupathy. The other talk is that Vijay is trying too hard. I don’t think so. I believe it was his intention to let VJS take the movie up a notch. With the exception of Ajith fans, regular audiences liked the fact that VJS was in the movie and didn’t think he overshadowed Vijay. Don’t believe what you read in social media alone.

Superhero movies constantly boast of an all-powerful villain whom the hero takes down block by block. It is no surprise that it sells. Marvel alone have minted Billions from the same formula.

In short - this is Vijay trying to understand what works in the current market and how best to harness his star power. I daresay he has succeeded. What I covered here is barely the tip of the iceberg. If a random dude like me is able to look into this so much, Vijay would have split hairs to see how to plan his career in the coming years.

Master is special because it has probably taught him stuff that is worth many times the budget of the movie. These lessons will make sure he stays as at the top of Kollywood for many years to come. That is priceless.