There’s a wicked moment in Vaa Vaathiyaar, when a minister is forced to read off a script over the phone, so a group of eavesdropping young activists can be conned by the performance, and walk themselves into trouble. The minister totally aces the performance, and you already know why. The damning assessment of Vaa Vaathiyaar is that successful politicians usually need to be competent actors. On paper, the casual horror in this scene should feel chilling. But this is a Nalan film, and he somehow manages to get you laughing as well. When Nalan is in full control, these are the original, ingenious moments he’s capable of.

And yes, by now, we also know that Nalan is capable of coming up with premises that are fresh, and that are also culturally authentic. Everyone’s been riding the superhero wave for a while, but look at Nalan digging into our roots and asking us the question: Do you see who our superhero is? For us, of course, the superhero isn’t born from mutation; he is born from adoration… by the masses. Who better than MGR then for this idea, with his morally unshakeable characters, doling out advice and justice like a mythical figure… The concept is great, and Nalan, clearly excited, has fun with the visual possibilities: the make-up, the thin moustache, the voice affectation, the horse, the whip, trademark gestures…

And for a while, it seems enough. The corrupt inspector dancing about. MGR look-alikes at a funeral. The bizarre arrival of MGR on a horse, brandishing a whip. It feels new and carries the anticipation of where it could all go.

But then, nothing memorable comes off it.

Maybe it’s the songs, which don’t always feel integrated into the film’s mood. Rajavin Paarvai is a cool track, but this doesn’t feel like a film whose rhythm, whose conflict, allows for indulgent choreography. Or maybe the bigger issue is the lack of a truly dangerous adversary. Sathyaraj’s Periyasamy is like the film itself: there’s effort in the aesthetics (with bulging teeth and what not), there’s potential, but it never quite amounts to much. He just… disappears without noise.

There are some noble ideas here. Ramu arguing that the point isn’t to murder an individual like Periyasamy, the undercurrent about cinema’s power to inspire, the film standing with protestors against politicians and cops who orchestrate falsehoods. But I got the feeling that all of this seriousness never quite sat comfortably with the quirky fantasy of a reborn MGR delivering justice.

Nalan is a talented filmmaker, and so, of course, there are still cool visual flourishes: the cyclical shot where the camera enters and exits the eyes of Ramu and MGR, capturing that their battle is actually interior. I also remember the quirky image of contemporary villains with Murugadoss-style weapons facing off against a man from another era (even if the fights themselves felt strangely generic and uninspired).

I thought Vaa Vaathiyaar seemed restless, and too enchanted with its own quirks to follow through strongly with any one idea. There’s cool premise, cool music, cool interpretation of a superhero… Vaathiyaar arrives on his horse, but the compelling film never quite does.