‘Blackmail’ movie review: GV Prakash, Srikanth headline a heavily contrived game of monkey-in-the-middle

A child and a young woman are passed around like objects in Blackmail, a film reminiscent of the middling time-pass thrillers from ten years ago. Headlined by GV Prakash Kumar, the poster boy of Tamil mid-budget thrillers, Blackmail is an attempt to hatch a tight-knit crime caper that throws a curveball every ten minutes, only that the twists are either too contrived, or gimmicky, or just generic.

The Mu Maran-directorial pieces together a web of lies and deceit in a world where most characters blackmail each other for their own needs. The hostages, sadly, are the child of a wealthy businessman and the pregnant partner of our impossible hero (because, I like to believe, nobody would be as foolish as he is).

Anu, the daughter of Ashok (Srikanth, a role that doesn’t offer him much), is targeted by her mother Archana’s (Bindu Madhavi) ex-lover Arun (Linga), who uses a sex tape to threaten her for some money. Just as he struggles to plot his scheme, he crosses paths with Mani (GV Prakash), who desperately needs a lot of money (or a lost package containing cocaine) to get his girlfriend, Rekha (Teju Ashwini), released from his nefarious boss Chidambaram (Muthukumar). As you can guess, Mani and his friend (Ramesh Thilak) accept Arun’s offer and attempt to kidnap Anu, only to witness a surprising turn of events.

Firstly, the most fun one could derive from watching Blackmail is that you could choose to begin this plot from any of the characters, move to other players in the game one by one, and still find a way to return to the primary character. Which is only fun until you realise that the effect isn’t from genius screenwriting but a juvenile ploy to make everything somehow recur later in this constricted world.

Mani, Arun, and Ashok, along with the other new characters in the mix, all devise ways to cheat each other, and Anu and Rekha are tossed around like playthings. In fact, the way the child is stuck in this perennial escaped-caught-escaped cycle might make one wonder about black magic! This reaches a point where you wouldn’t be surprised even if a mythical albatross appears out of thin air and nabs the child.

From all the effort to create a thriller atmosphere, one wonders if there was hope that these supposed surprises were enough to sustain the audience’s interest. Just because a character can return in the most unexpected timing and fashion, or just because an end can be achieved with an easy means, doesn’t necessarily make it all that effective. As if to oust their lack of confidence over such damp writing, we are also gifted a freebie item number, in-brand with the film’s quality of twists — the dancers are all transwomen!

As you reach the end of the film, you might feel compelled to count the number of people inhabiting this world who aren’t delinquents or miscreants who are “good people who were left without any option.” Strangely, except for the child, the young woman, and the police, everyone in this film becomes a blackmailer at some point. If only I had been nabbed from the hall during the intermission.

Blackmail is currently running in theatres