10 Endrathukulla

In his previous film Goli Soda, Vijay Milton demonstrated that he can make a familiar masala tale feel fresh with his treatment. 10 Endrathukulla, too, is a masala movie, but strangely, this film lacks the liveliness and inventiveness that made Goli Soda stand out. Rather the focus seems to have shifted from script to scale — smart writing is traded in for exotic locales, larger-than-life characters, over-the-top action choreography and overall blandness.

The first half of the film draws heavily on the plot of The Transporter. Here, we have Vikram (his name or rather the lack of one — he calls himself James Bond, Mani Ratnam, Bill Gates — is meant to be a running joke though we soon realize it as a pointless one), as a skilled car driver who works at a driving school, but takes on no-questions-asked mercenary work for money. Dass, a local gangster, comes into his life, and offers him one assignment — to deliver a package to Uttarkhand in three days. He agrees, but en route, he discovers that he has company in the form of his driving school student, Shakila. As expected, romance blooms between the two during the journey, but in the second half, Vikram comes to know that Shakila is the 'package', and learns why she is important to the people who have kidnapped her (which is linked to a serious caste-based massacre that opens the film). He decides to save her from the terrible fate that awaits her but time is fast running out.

You can see why an actor like Vikram would have chosen this script. After the physically demanding I, this lightweight role would have come across as a welcome change of pace, and the actor does his best. Samantha would have seen it as an opportunity to stretch herself a bit in terms of range, instead of playing just another pretty girl who behaves like a nutcase (though she does get to play that as well for most parts of the film). But with a plot that is slight and even vague till the final act, they can do only so much, and they only e...