Metro (2016 film)

Plot

The film begins with Arivazhagan (Shirish Saravanan) along with his friend locking up an unknown man and torturing him with a camera filming the whole incident. The movie then turns to a flash back, where Arivu narrates how happy he and his family was. Arivu who is a writer for a press and the eldest son of a retired Police Head-constable and his wife, has a brother names Madhi who is a 1st year Engineering student. Arivu's Middle-class family life is however happy with his friend Kumar (Sendrayan) mingling as one of the family. Problem begins when Madhi who is pressured by his Girl friend to get an expensive bike, persuades his family to get him a bike. Though hesitant at first, they agree to get him a bike of his choice. However, delay in getting his bike and seeing his classmate Ganesh (Nishanth) spending casually makes him curious to know what he does for money. This is when he is introduced to the heinous crime of chain snatching. Ganesh introduces him to Guna (Bobby Simha) who is heading a gang of young college going chain snatches. Madhi joins the gang and starts to earn through chain snatching, and gets all the things he wants.

The plot turns when Madhi decides to do these crimes alone without having to give Guna any commission. Though hesitant at first, the others join him when 2 of the boys get caught by police and Guna doesn't come to their aid. Madhi injects Guna with a drug that makes him insane and lose his senses. Madhi goes back to his house to get a chain recently snatched by him, only to find his mom with the chain and all the other gadgets he owns without his parents knowledge. An argument begins and Madhi pushes his mother to death. When Arivu and his father come home to realize their mother's death, Kumar vows to avenge the loss when even Arivu joins in.

During a police investigation, Arivu and Kumar track down a house breaker and nab him to an unknown location coming back to the first scene. Arivu calls up the police to handover the criminal and runs away with the bag. He takes the bag with 23 kg of stolen gold chains to a black market buyer. At that place he finds his mother's chain which leads him to the chain snatchers. He leaves the place not before killing all the men in there. Arivu goes to Guna's place and finds out the next plan of the snatchers. He goes with Kumar to the place and a fight ensues where Arivu and Kumar manages to kill 3 of the 4 men. When Madhi unbeknownst that the two are his brother and friend removes his helmet and reveals his face. Arivu in shock and despair removes his helmet too all the while surprising Madhi. When Madhi pleads his brother to spare him, Arivu ignores and kills his brother as well.

Arivu and Kumar reveal all the truth to his father and surrender to the police.

Cast

Production

Bobby Simha agreed to work on the film as the antagonist in early 2015, despite having begun to work on bigger budget films and as the lead actor in other projects. In September 2015, the film's music composer Johan, travelled the Germany to work on the film's sound mixing. Anandakrishnan said that the film is based on chain snatching people.

Soundtrack

In January 2016, actor Karthi launched a single track for the film at the request of the producers.

Release

The film was given a "A" certificate by the Indian Censor Board due to its violent content, the sequences were demanded to be cut short, but the director Anandakrishnan did not agree to, he believed that the content of the story is very strong so therefore he wants to showcase the true Incidents. The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) of Tamil Nadu has banned the movie, therefore the director has sent the movie for the Revising committee. Due to the conflict, the film's release got further delayed. After arriving at an agreement —the film was not cut and retained its "A" Certificate— the release date was fixed as 24 June 2016.

Critical reception

Behindwoods gave the film a rating of 2.5 stars out of 5, noting that background music and slow motion sequences negatively impacted the pace of the film. "What should be moving at the speed of a roller coaster moves at the pace of a merry go around." Other criticism was levied at the script. "We wish the director had paid a sharpened focus to the screenplay. A better execution could have helped this fare fly a notch higher." Times of India gave the film a rating of 3 stars out of 5 and praised it for "presenting us a world of hardened criminals that is believable and fearsome." However, Times also noted a lack of strength in the script and stiff characters and poor performances as a drawback. Baradwaj Rangan of The Hindu also criticized the acting, writing: "The biggest problem, though, is the fatally ineffective cast. Bobby Simha plays the leader of a chain-snatching gang, and he’s laughable when issuing threats ... And would you believe Sentrayan as a menacing action hero? Not for all the gold in the world." Gautaman Bhaskaran of Hindustan Times gave the film a rating of 3 stars out of 5, summarizing, "Metro, with a stylishly captivating Simha and individual performances that don’t tip overboard into melodrama, is one of the better Tamil movies to have emerged in recent months."