Michael is a gangster drama which follows the story of the protagonist who wishes to stamp his authority amidst some big fishes in the sea. Will he be successful? The story here does begin well but for some strange odd reason, the writers play it very safe thereby making the drama cliched and generic. The screenplay standing at a shade above 150 minutes does overstay its welcome, given that the story starts to spread thin.

First things first, I was quite impressed with the use of lighting here. Surprisingly, it did add texture here simply with its style. The drama opens with a tagline, ‘After The Climax’ and a little later, ‘Before The Beginning’ that did help to set the context well. For me, the writing here was willing to give the film a chance to unfold in a layered manner. That said, I couldn’t help but think that the writing had an overbearing similarity to KGF right at the very beginning. Although, the proceedings were engrossing but the similarity was evident.

One of the main issues that I had with the drama was that it did not completely define the place where the drama was unfolding. The sudden jumps to multiple cities did not help its cause here. Had the drama been more rooted, the impact of it would have been higher. While the first 35 to 40 odd minutes did make for an intriguing watch, as it should be for a gangster film, the slide begins immediately after the love angle is introduced. The slide is steep and how! Even the beats of the screenplay begin to get generic with every twist and turn that is predictable and doesn’t really harm to the protagonist in any manner. To give you an instance, the interval block saw the protagonist being shot in his chest and thrown in a 6 feet deep gorge. But miraculously after the halfway mark, he is resurrected and wants revenge. Meh!

The events of the second half are straight out of the 80s or 90s films. Yes, the action scenes may not really be gravity defying but the proceeding takes the route of a generic revenge drama. So Michael is after his boss and his son as he begins his hunt. Even the introduction of Vijay Sethupathi’s character seemed gimmicky and really cliched. It was as predictable as sun rising from the east! I knew that his character was a catalyst to help out the protagonist and so there were little surprises here. Even the final act when all the cards are revealed did not surprise me at all. It is as if I knew the plot all along as I just about scraped through the film unharmed. A setup for a potential sequel too was just half hearted. Lets hope its second part has a little more substance because the screenplay here is far too generic and cliched for my liking.