Salim

Synopsis: Salim, a model doctor and a do-gooder, breaks down when he loses his job and rejected by his fiancé. He turns into a vigilante to teach the powerful a lesson…

Movie Review: You have to give it to Vijay Antony. He is definitely not an expressive actor (all he has is one stoic expression) but with Naan earlier and now Salim, he has managed to find roles where impassiveness is a trait of the character. In this film, he is a doctor by profession and a do-gooder at large (a fact which is established needlessly through innumerable scenes where he helps the needy in his profession and even outside of it). He gets engaged to Nisha, who, with her volatile personality, finds it hard to comprehend his Zen-like nature. Things get to a point when Salim’s service-mindedness at work and non-confrontational nature when he’s with Nisha end up in him losing his job and the girl. Having reached his breaking point, Salim has a Falling Down/Evano Oruvan-like meltdown, following which he turns into a vigilante. But has he gone so far that there is no return?

The first half of Salim nicely sets up what’s in store. The events leading up to Salim’s breakdown are very relatable. He is very much disturbed after he rescues a girl who has been raped and burnt with acid, an act which doesn’t go all too well with the hospital’s managing director. And, Nisha doesn’t understand that his is a 24x7 job, and on a rare occasion when the two manage to go out, Salim tries to defuse a situation between her and a group of guys instead of taking them on, and Nisha feels he is useless. His breakdown too is captured well. He is pushed and pushed and pushed into a corner that he has no other option but to hit back at those pushing him. This leads to an altercation with a vicious cop who wants to ruin his life (it’s a pity the guy vanishes after the interval), and that only strengthens his resolve further. These portions have a formal competence about them that you start rooting for Salim to revolt about his ‘oppressors’.

It is only in the second half that things get somewhat cinematic. Salim decides to turn into a crusader and he goes after the people who raped the girl he rescued. And these people are obviously powerful ones — a minister, his teenaged son, a gangster and a cop. He goes to a hotel where the minister’s son and his cronies are trying to misbehave with a dancing girl, beats them senseless and holds them hostage in the hotel. By the time the hostage drama ends, the film has turned into a routine vigilante thriller where the hero is a superman who can get away even when there are hundreds of guns pointing at him.