Vaathi Movie review

As you dive into Venky Atluri's latest film Vaathi (also known as SIR in Telugu), you'll quickly pick up on a pattern that persists throughout the movie. Venky kicks off the story in a relaxed and subtle manner. In 2022, three boys come across a box of video cassettes, and upon playing one of them, we see the back of a teacher scribbling trigonometry equations on a blackboard. It's Dhanush, and he briefly turns towards the camera for a split second, but the coveted hero introduction shot falls flat. The mystery surrounding the cassettes takes the boys to the District Collector's office, where we once again catch a glimpse of Dhanush in a photograph on the wall.

Vaathi (Tamil) / Sir (Telugu)

Director: Venky Atluri

Cast: Dhanush, Samyuktha, Samuthirakani, Ken Karunas

Runtime: 139 minutes

Storyline: When an assistant teacher from a private school is sent to a government school to serve as a full-time teacher, he discovers layers of issues that plague the students and a bigger conspiracy at play.

The understated tone that Venky establishes in the opening scenes is carried through to the first half of the movie, with even the songs possessing a subdued energy that's quite exciting. Dhanush's exceptional dancing skills take a back seat when there's no elaborate set-up for the first song. He nonchalantly strolls down the street and casually grooves to the music. In the middle of "Vaa Vaathi," a romantic track, Venky delivers a powerful message about how schools can become a sanctuary for marginalized communities who are excluded from places of worship. These are fantastic ideas.

Dhanush's Vaathi provides hope for change, says director Venky Atluri.

However, the film is filled with one-off ideas that often undermine the story. The use of GV Prakash's excellent scores feels uneven, and the restraint shown in the introduction shots falls apart when a big name card for Dhanush appears the third time we see him, even though the moment for it has passed.

The film is set in the '90s in a town called Sozhavaram on the Tamil Nadu-Andhra Pradesh border. Dhanush's character Balamurugan, an assistant teacher at a private school called Thirupathi Coaching Centre, is sent to a government school in Sozhavaram as a full-time mathematics teacher, thanks to a deal between the government and TCC's head Srinivasa Thirupathi (Samuthirakani). However, Thirupathi has his own agenda, and he sends these "third-grade" teachers to government schools to ensure that his own students come out on top.

But Balamurugan has a noble mission, which starts with getting the students to attend classes, bringing them together, and rallying against Thirupathi. The geographical and period settings are essential to the story, with the lack of communication devices, modern modes of transport, and the internet necessary to tell this tale. Additionally, setting the film in a border town helps this Tamil-Telugu bilingual film. However, the movie stops establishing the look and feel of the period, and some of the lip-syncing is terrible.

In Vaathi, the hero finds small ways to achieve great things, but the screenplay is undemanding and offers few pay-offs, even when some scenes are well set-up. The film needs more moments like the one where Bala explains the futility of caste and how the classroom can become a microcosm of society. With more of these, the movie could have been something similar to the 2007 American film