Amaran - A journey of love, war and loss.

Amaran
Tamil - War / Drama 
167 mins
Netflix

In Amaran, Indu Rebecca Varghese (Sai Pallavi) narrates the story of her husband Major Mukund Varadarajan (Sivakarthikeyan), while she is on her way to receive the Ashoka Chakra posthumously awarded to him.

Directed by Rajkumar Periasamy, the movie is a good retelling of Major Mukund's life of two parts - his rise through the ranks, how he led his platoon and their reverence for him. His close friendship with Sepoy Vikram Singh (Bhuvan Arora) as well as his trusted relationship with CO Colonel Amit Singh Dabas (Rahul Bose) and the operations they carried out in Kashmir. In parallel, the movie explores his love story with Indu, the challenges they faced to get married and the long distance relationship after.

Sivakarthikeyan delivers a career best performance.  His physical transformation is stunning, his dialogue delivery especially as a Major are solid. The way he goes from "Mamootty" (calling out to Indu) to "face of the Indian army" (when he puts a bullet into an extremist), summarises his journey as an actor/star.

Sai Pallavi is one actor i always look to watch in a movie. She is so easily able to take to any part with ease. Her transformation from an tomboyish Malayali girl ("Chetta") to a lover and a wife ("Mukunde") and a mother is a truly beautiful. Her smile always lights up the screen while her sadness make you ache with her! Her casting her as Indu has definitely enhanced the impact of this movie, such is her appeal.

Rahul Bose gets good screen time and i truly appreciate that he dubbed his lines in Tamil, even though his character generally speaks Hinglish. Ditto Bhuvan Arora, as man friday to Major Mukund, who does a lovely job in their scenes together. Hopefully he can get graduate from the best friend parts into more substantial ones in the future.

The only criticism that i have was perhaps too much "build up" / dramatising of the antagonists. Being a  streaming version on Netflix, i think the original language spoken by many characters could have been retained with additional sub titles. To me it always dumbs down impact of actors when they are clearly speaking another language and we hear Tamil.

As a tribute to a war hero - the movie is good in capturing key moments of valour and his personal life while also demonstrating the constant distress the families live under, while their sons answer the call of the nation's duty. Amaran is very engaging film overall, with good performances, engaging sequences, good music and production values.