There’s a character in Jailer 2 whom I’d become really fond of, to the point of genuinely worrying whether he would get killed. Strangely, I’m not talking about any of the good guys. Not even Rajinikanth’s Muthuvel Pandian. I’m talking about Moorthi (Namo Narayana), an annoying little villain who is hilariously convinced that the mere mention of his name would strike terror in people’s hearts. What a delight to watch director Nelson Dilipkumar clinically dismantle his ego. Among the many funny moments built around the myth of Moorthi is one where Muthu asks a group of criminals whether they’ve heard of his boss, Moorthi. They look around, asking each other, and nobody seems to have the faintest idea who this man is. Someone eventually asks what Moorthi does, and Muthu says he runs a fruit shop. It’s just the way he says it, the way other characters react to this underwhelming information… In fact, I imagine it might not have sounded particularly funny on paper. But that’s Nelson for you. The absurdity of the situation, the deadpan delivery, the ridiculousness of this man who bumbles about without the slightest awareness of the danger he’s surrounded by… These are the moments, these are the characters I go to a Nelson film for.

In fact, I’m increasingly convinced that the real stars of Nelson’s cinema aren’t his heroes or villains, but these peculiar people who keep popping up from nowhere. There’s Kohli (Bjorn Surrao), who seems to suspect Muthu before anybody else does. There’s Bhaskar, who seems oddly fixated on identifying colours by their precise names. Ferrari Red, he calls the colour of water from Muthu’s (Rajinikanth) tap. And then of course, there’s Moorthi, who randomly makes comments about Thor and Harry Potter. It’s all wonderfully silly, wonderfully original. In these portions, Nelson feels wonderfully liberated, admirably irreverent. But in a Rajinikanth film, this alone won’t do, will it? We wait for the mass moments, the elevation scenes.

And that’s increasingly been a challenge over the years, hasn’t it? By now, I suspect that the hardest part of constructing elevation moments in a Superstar film is simply finding convincing situations in which to… recreate famous Rajinikanth moments from his older films. Have him slowly sit while a defeated opponent stands. Have him cross his legs in slow motion. Let the sound of his boots announce his arrival. Make him enter an office where his mere presence causes panic. Every Rajinikanth film tries to delight us with these familiar ideas… but the best Rajinikanth films understand that unless there’s enough for Rajinikanth, the actor, to play with, there’s only so much joy Rajinikanth, the star, can give us.

Jailer 2 remembers this, often quite beautifully. Nelson’s dry humour can sometimes give you the false impression that his protagonists remain inexpressive. But look closely at Rajinikanth in this film. Look at his menacing, predatory gaze as Anirudh’s variation of Alappara plays. Look at the devastation in those same eyes when a horrific truth is revealed about him towards the end. Anirudh, meanwhile, gleefully plays around with his compositions. I loved his variations of Kaavaalaa, Hukum, Alappara… and the cute, inventive ways in which he reinterprets his own tracks based on the film’s situation. Some of this inventiveness, however, isn’t to be seen in two song situations that seem obsessed with having women dance provocatively. I found myself waiting impatiently for both Ala Bolelo and Bindaas to end, so that I could return to the film. While on women, I caught a joke about a fat woman early on, and I remember feeling that Nelson’s comic imagination really shouldn’t need these ideas, much less have Rajinikanth be the voice of them. These ideas are wholly forgettable.

But what isn’t is the sadness in Rajinikanth’s eyes. Even when he’s creating heroic moments, there’s something weary, something solemn, about Muthu. Something perhaps broken. I thought this performance worked beautifully for a character who lives with the knowledge that he murdered his own son. Even in his most triumphant moments, Muthu cannot really revel. As the film shows in the beginning, he can’t even try to celebrate the birthday of his daughter-in-law without saying sorry for trying. This is probably why, for me, those second-half comedy bits in which he mock-flirts with Vidya Balan’s Kantha felt a little out of tune with my understanding of this man.

It’s also why I was particularly invested in the film’s late decision to revisit the murder of Arjun. I liked that Jailer 2 shows genuine interest in remaining connected to the world it built in the first film. Yogi Babu isn’t here just for the comedy; his presence recalls ideas from the first film. Shiva Rajkumar’s Narasimha gets a little more to do; we see a bit of his family. I appreciated these attempts at continuity, these efforts to build from the first film’s foundation. So, yes, of course, Muthu’s actions were going to catch up with him, where he must suffer some punishment for what he has done, righteous though his actions may have been. And yet, as I watched Muthu suffer, something within me suffered too. I recognised it as the boy within me who couldn’t bear to see Baasha tied to a pole and beaten. There’s a pillar here too, and Vijay Kartik Kannan’s camera seems almost as reluctant as we all are to witness the violence. It circles the pillar, hesitant to capture the beating. I get it.

I find this fascinating about our relationship with Rajinikanth. We have attached so much of our childhood to this man that some irrational part of us wishes to protect him from it, even if he deserves it for being as brutal (which he refers to as his “bad habit”). And increasingly, in his recent films, the violence is gratuitous; even decapitation is starting to feel generic.

That’s why I wished that the film had stayed with the suffering of Muthu’s family for a bit longer. We see glimpses of the family’s grief, the trauma of losing Arjun, and the terrible implications of discovering who killed him. Vijaya (Ramya Krishnan), at one point, asks Muthu to kill himself. It’s a devastating moment, one that seems to suggest that Muthu has crossed a point of no return. But an explanation arrives, and the emotional rupture within the family is repaired swiftly, too cleanly, too easily. It’s almost like the family’s suffering is a bit of a plot device, a ‘low moment’ so we can enjoy the ‘high’ that follows. Manufactured as it might be, I still shed a tear, particularly when the grandson cries for his grandfather’s pain.

The first half of Jailer 2 is fantastic, original, and full of personality. But the second half suddenly tries to do too many things, almost like it doesn’t trust itself to build on the strengths of the first half. Dileep (Suraj Venjaramoodu) is genuinely menacing in the first half, for instance; and Muthu even seems to have a bit of respect for him. There’s an interesting suggestion that these two men are both doing terrible things in the name of family. And yet, after interval, the film is done with Dileep, and sends him off unceremoniously, almost unfairly. What’s the point of Muthu’s laboriously constructed strategy if it can be swatted away like that?

And then comes Bodhi Kalpak and his family. In theory, the idea of an entire criminal family taking on Muthu should raise the stakes considerably. And yet, none of them ever amount to a decent adversary, not even to the levels of Dileep. The film itself doesn’t seem to think much of Bodhi (SJ Suryah) as an adversary. He begs, cries, screams in frustration, and repeatedly discovers that Muthu has solutions for every problem. It’s difficult to fear a villain when he’s repetitively humiliated. With Moorthi, we enjoy it because it’s a funny character, but Bodhi is supposed to be way more serious. Likewise, it’s difficult to feel anxious for a protagonist who seems so unruffled for the most part. At some point, the elevation ideas get a bit repetitive, the wins feel a bit too easy.

This is particularly unfortunate because Jailer 2 is at its most gripping when Muthu is alone, thinking his way through a problem, figuring his way out through an impossible situation. But the film, like the first one, seems convinced that one superstar isn’t enough. Other stars must arrive, preferably in slow motion. Mohanlal and Jackie Shroff return for no obvious reason. The big Bollywood cameo is stylishly shot, and I particularly enjoyed that playful moment of having him wear glasses in Rajinikanth’s style. It’s a reminder that Rajinikanth is in all of us, whether we realise it or not. But even with that cameo, I wasn’t sure whether these appearances genuinely contributed to the storytelling in any meaningful way. They’re well-executed to create applause, but I thought they lacked soul.

And yet, despite these reservations, there’s enough comic novelty and hero elevation, and above all, coherent storytelling that makes Jailer 2 an enjoyable sequel. It feels more focused on its central story, and there are moments when it seems to be actively correcting some of the first film’s shortcomings. Nelson’s humour works beautifully, Rajinikanth is in great form, and Anirudh continues to relish the pleasure of making a theatre erupt. If anything, any frustration I have comes from how much I enjoyed the film when it trusted that the Superstar was enough.

Because strength in numbers isn’t the same as strength of character. The film gathers an entire family of villains (a Breaking Bad-inspired wheelchair villain who, as you can expect, works with an explosive), and then assembles a battalion of heroes to confront them, many of whom don’t have much to do. A group of villains isn’t necessarily more frightening than one great villain. And a collection of superstars isn’t necessarily more exhilarating than one Rajinikanth. After all, wasn’t it a Rajinikanth film that taught us this? Singam single-a dhaan varum.

Varanum.