The first act of Vishal Venkat’s sophomore film, Bomb, bears many hallmarks of a novel social satire. The film sets up a premise akin to Madonne Ashwin’s Mandela, but with a Swiss Army Man-esque twist that makes you sit right up. There’s again a town divided due to sectarianism and its related politics, but this time the burden falls on a corpse — you read that right — to make the townsmen see sense.
The film begins with a voiceover narrating how Kaalakammaipatti, a rural town in Tamil Nadu, bloomed in prosperity, widely believed to be due to their local deity, who used to bless the devotees every year following a three-part ritual. Which was the case at least until an incident that sowed hatred in the hearts of the people. A huge sacred rock split, leaving the town divided into two sects — into Kaalapatti and Kammaipatti — a cut that grew deeper and deeper, as they blamed each other for why the ‘real deity’ stopped blessing them.
Arjun Das in a still from ‘Bomb’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
In the present day, the town stands as a relic of communalism. The townsmen simply cannot put their differences aside, even for the betterment of all. The government officials, like an honest IAS officer (Abhirami), have taken notice of the social unrest in the region, but their efforts end in vain. Then comes the most hilarious twist: an alcoholic atheist (Kaali Venkat, as Kathiravan), who abhors all the customs and thinks the town is full of dimwits, dies, and his body, which occasionally farts (and hence the title of the movie!), is believed to fulfil a prophecy signalling the return of the deity. The two communities end up fighting over who the deity belongs to.
Stuck in the middle between the two groups are Kathiravan’s friend Manimuthu (Arjun Das, who gives his all), strangely the only person who can lift the ‘deity’, and Prabha (Shivathmika Rajashekar), Kathiravan’s sister. Mani believes that his friend is alive, but Prabha refrains from taking her brother to a hospital, the reason behind which forms the crux of the story.
Bomb (Tamil)
Director: Vishal Venkat
Cast: Arjun Das, Kaali Venkat, Shivathmika Rajashekar, Nassar, Abhirami
Runtime: 139 minutes
Storyline: A dead body creates chaos among two faith-driven sects in a rural town, who believe that it’s a sign of their deity’s return
Kudos to Vishal Venkat (who made an impressive debut with Sila Nerangalil Sila Manidhargal), Bomb doesn’t hold back in taking digs at the many superstitions and stigmas we find in our world. The very introduction to this world takes a dig at how castes are formed and how futile the differences between men of caste can be. One of the main arcs revolves around a young boy named Yogesh, whose sleepwalking problem lands him in trouble; it’s a wonderful commentary on how casteism tears apart such tender souls for daring to dream.
The heart is in the right place, and Bomb has the right characters voicing the right things — like a girl child whose protest against her parents’ hypocrisy garners all the applause, or a problematic figure who understands what shedding light on darkness really means, or a dialogue from Abhirami on an overlooked role that faith plays in society. Even Mani gets a terrific scene to shine, which has probably the only morsel of conventional heroism the script allows for.
However, what Bomb misses out on right from the beginning is a deftness in mixing nuanced social commentary with satire. Yes, we have a dead body making air biscuits, a politician (Nassar) who sees money in fuelling social tensions, the two egoistic leaders of the groups, and so on, but why did the humour dry up so quickly? Comedian Bala Saravanan appears as a YouTuber who is worried about his channel’s low subscriber count, and after a point, this arc only gets quite annoying. It doesn’t help that many subplots exist only to sell sentimentality, such as one revolving around an elderly woman and a couple, which strains for emotion only to deliver shallow melodrama.
Shivathmika Rajashekar and Arjun Das in a still from ‘Bomb’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
The biggest issue, the one that might spoil the whole deal for most, is how the film fails to properly establish the individuals from the two sects, which is why you need a few moments to understand a young man’s problem with a childless couple. The director displays name cards with respective sects right in the beginning, but given the number of characters in play, they hardly register. In fact, many interpersonal dynamics are left ambiguous. We are repeatedly told of a tragedy that Mani and Kathiravan suffered in their pasts, but we don’t get to know more about it. You wonder why the narrator left that tragedy out while narrating the town’s history. This is an issue, since this thread proves pivotal in understanding Mani’s deal with the opposite group and why he is allowed to freely roam around and be friends with Kathiravan and his sister.
If anything, Bomb is a great showcase of how writing an intriguing premise and setting up a world aren’t enough. The text must organically build on the ideas, and the filmmaking needs finesse to translate promising ideas onto the screen. Above all, not every emotion needs to be spoon-fed. Maybe all we need is some faith in the audience.
Bomb is currently running in theatres
Published – September 12, 2025 06:18 pm IST