Bakasuran is a film written and directed by Mohan G, and produced by himself under the banner GM Film Corporation. The film stars Selvaraghavan and Natty in the lead roles while Radha Ravi, K Rajan, PL Thennappan, Devadharshini, and others play supporting roles. The film has music by Sam CS and cinematography by Farook J Basha.
Ex-serviceman Major Arul Varman (Natty) is a popular Youtuber who makes videos explaining various crime scenes. One day he gets to know that his niece, a college student, has committed suicide due to marriage pressure by parents. Upon digging deeper, he finds out that she was blackmailed with a video of being intimate with her partner. As he traces the network, he finds out how the entire racket operates.
On the other hand, a Shiva devotee and street theatre artist - Bheemarasu (Selvaraghavan), goes on a killing spree, brutally murdering 2 men and a woman. What is the motive behind these murders? And what connects Arul Varman and Bheemarasu? This is what Bakasuran is all about.
This is Mohan G's fourth film after Pazhaya Vannarapettai, Draupathi, Rudra Thandavam, and one must say Mohan the director has progressed exponentially when it comes to fine tuning the technical aspects of cinema. Especially, when it comes to cinematography and music, Bakasuran is far better than all his previous works. But for each forward step he takes on the filmmaking side, the thoughts in the film take a few steps backward.
The film chooses to address the issue about women being forced into prostitution rackets, and how they are exploited there. However, without addressing what actually forces women into prostitution, the writer in Mohan G conveniently blames a few dating applications for it, and gives a solution where he asks parents to constantly spy on women when they're alone, and check their phones frequently.
With a message that blames women for everything that happens to them, and shifting the onus from the system or society, the film proclaiming to be made to safeguard women, is venomous to say the least. Another issue with Bakasuran is that the film's story takes a backseat while the messaging is on the face and preachy. This affects the engagement and we already know what each character is going to do next, making things completely predictable.
Selvaraghavan is fantastic as Bheemarasu and steals the show in the opening song and a few more scenes. He's one of the actors who should be used in more films but less frequently so that he isn't stereotyped for similar roles. Natty comes as a calm and composed ex-serviceman and does his job very well. Among the rest of the characters, there isn't much to say since their character arcs aren't fully developed. The supporting characters look like mere caricatures - a template evil politician, a template corrupt police officer, a template boyfriend and so on.
Technically, Sam CS' background score lifts a lot of scenes, and makes the film watchable to an extent. However it is Farook's camera work that offers the film a certain visual quality. Both the technicians needed a more engaging script and had that happened, their work would have been par excellence. Barring one or two places, the editor seems to have done a fine job.
Overall, it is delightful to see Mohan evolve as a director who can extract good performances and get things done technically. However, the screenwriting needed to be better. At a time when women are making progress in a lot of fields, a film with regressive thoughts has all possibilities to hamper their progress, will be a topic of debate.