How
about a zombie movie for all the New Yorkers staggering around dazed and
confused? We can make it a Tamil one, for extra added un-Trump-ness. Ooty is
about to be over-run by the shuffling hordes and they’re not staying put in
Shakti Soundar Rajan’s Miruthan (trailer here), which screens
during the 2016 Ithaca Fantastik film festival.
Karthik
could have been a super cop, but since he is the sole support of his beloved
kid sister Vidhya, he transferred to traffic to stay safe. Yet, somehow he
managed to show-up the local political boss, while falling hard for his doctor
daughter, Renuka. As a form of ill-timed payment, the pol’s followers kidnap
Vidhya, just as the zombie apocalypse hits.
This
makes things a little awkward when Renuka asked for assistance getting to the
Indian CDC in Coimbatore. However, Karthik agrees once Vidhya is safely
rescued. Actually, “safe” really isn’t the right word in the context of a
zombie uprising.
There
is no getting around the broad, schticky humor of the first half hour. Let’s
just say Karthik has a portly, incompetent partner and man oh man, can he ever
mug. However, when the film settles down the run-and-shoot zombie business, it
gets pretty good. These are definitely fast zombies and they are decidedly
fierce. They also have a cat-like aversion to water, which gives rise to a cool
scene with a fire hose.
Jayam
Ravi and Lakshmi Menon have decent star-crossed chemistry as Karthik and
Renuka. Anikha Surendran is also rather poised as young Vidhya. However, Kaali
Venkat and Sriman wage a pitched battle to see who can be the more annoying
goofball, Karthik’s partner Malai or the mall rent-a-cop they pick up along the
way.