10 Endrathukulla (2015)

In his previous film Goli Soda, Vijay Milton demonstrated that he can make a familiar masala tale feel fresh with his treatment. 10 Endrathukulla, too, is a masala movie, but strangely, this film lacks the liveliness and inventiveness that made Goli Soda stand out. Rather the focus seems to have shifted from script to scale — smart writing is traded in for exotic locales, larger-than-life characters, over-the-top action choreography and overall blandness.

The first half of the film draws heavily on the plot of The Transporter. Here, we have Vikram (his name or rather the lack of one — he calls himself James Bond, Mani Ratnam, Bill Gates — is meant to be a running joke though we soon realize it as a pointless one), as a skilled car driver who works at a driving school, but takes on no-questions-asked mercenary work for money. Dass, a local gangster, comes into his life, and offers him one assignment — to deliver a package to Uttarkhand in three days. He agrees, but en route, he discovers that he has company in the form of his driving school student, Shakila. As expected, romance blooms between the two during the journey, but in the second half, Vikram comes to know that Shakila is the 'package', and learns why she is important to the people who have kidnapped her (which is linked to a serious caste-based massacre that opens the film). He decides to save her from the terrible fate that awaits her but time is fast running out.

You can see why an actor like Vikram would have chosen this script. After the physically demanding I, this lightweight role would have come across as a welcome change of pace, and the actor does his best. Samantha would have seen it as an opportunity to stretch herself a bit in terms of range, instead of playing just another pretty girl who behaves like a nutcase (though she does get to play that as well for most parts of the film). But with a plot that is slight and even vague till the final act, they can do only so much, and they only end up with another Rajapattai and Anjaan on their resumes. The director takes time to set up things and even when the plot kicks in, there are speed bumps in the forms of songs (Charmmee appears in one and does a strip tease of sorts), comedy (the efforts of Shakila to get a license, which include a mandatory scene involving Mano Bala) and action sequences that are hardly thrilling. The multiple villains do not help. Pasupathy gets a few scenes initially and then is turned into a comical villain. Abhimanyu Singh is introduced with so much build-up and is given quite a bit of screen time only to be dismissed later as just a hireling making all his scenes seem redundant. Rahul Dev looks like the main villain but then we realize he isn't. As for the romance, the most noteworthy scene (for all the wrong reasons) is one where Vikram accidentally touches Samantha's breast (while looking for a key in her pocket) and the soundtrack nudges us to this fact with the sound of a horn. And her character doesn't even care!

To his credit, Milton does give us a second half that is relatively engaging. We even get a twist — involving look-alikes — that is far-fetched but at least peps up things a little. And the striking scenery gives us something to feast our eyes on. But these are minor satisfactions that we derive mainly to lessen the feeling of disappointment that envelopes us as we watch the film. Milton's hero might finish things off before you finish counting 10, but his film that refuses to take off even after we have finished counting 100.