Enemy of the Smuggler Movie Review: Peddles convulated storytelling

Agatha Christie, one of the most celebrated authors whose works have been adapted into films worldwide, drew heavily on her experience as a World War I nurse and her interactions with injured Belgian soldiers and refugees in her novels. Employing the names and purposes of certain medicines and poisons in her thrillers, and the inception of the popular Belgian detective Hercule Poirot are the brainchildren of Christie's World War I experience. It is exciting to see what a thorough professional powered by niche knowledge in a field brings to the pages or screen. Something similar happens in Enemy of the Smuggler, as IRS officer-turned filmmaker T Samaya Murali offers a peek into the murky world of smuggling through seaports and how Customs officials sometimes act as conduits for dirty jobs. But the initial excitement gets diluted when he decides to offer an exhaustive checklist of facts packaged as a film and clears it through the port, and fails.

Firstly, the film, thankfully, resists the temptation to introduce too many gangs and convolute the story. Of course, there are other things to do that in the screenplay later on. But avoidance of the usual excruciating exercise is a small mercy. Also, Tamil cinema has given the audience an entry into numerous Government offices like the Regional Transport Office and Tahsildar's Office. But rarely have they been more than just places of rustling pages, ringing telephones, and screechy cupboards. The short-lived attraction in Enemy of the Smuggler comes from the introduction of the Customs officials' lesser-known routine in clearing containers and the blind spots in the process wrongdoers exploit.

The film's undoing, too, comes with that in a way. The director is too indulgent with the Customs paraphernalia, so much that he forgets he is supposed to build a story around it and not dish out a news report package. This is where the proceedings take a nosedive; none of the characters, their ambitions, and emotional stakes ever stick. On top of it, the glaring dubbing inconsistencies get irritating after a point.

The film begins with debt-ridden Amar (Saran), who is thrust into the world of smuggling and uses his menial job at the Customs office to figure out a way into this new and dangerous profession. Soon enough, the director takes a cookie-cutter approach in introducing a lifeless family angle and romantic track for Amar. He takes meticulous caution not to give Amar's mother (Radikaa Sarathkumar) or his wife Pavithra (Smeha) a single notable scene.

Kudos to the director for democratically offering everyone, including himself, a raw deal. Except for Lingam's (JD Chakravarthy) slow-motion "serious" gestures and Kadhar alias Michael Bhai's (Lal) gaudy costumes, nothing makes a case for how dangerous they are. Despite a lacklustre first half, the second half held promise. Now it is natural for one to expect a smuggling heist to have unexpected hurdles and the accompanying thrills. But no. An intelligent and upright officer (Samaya Murali) displays his "smarts" and enters the scene to foil the criminal plot. This choice neither serves Samaya Murali's interest in displaying his acting finesse nor the story's. As the "twists" kept coming towards the end, you find yourself buried amidst countless mentions of containers, consignments, and syndicates. The film introduces Samaya Murali's officer as a torture specialist who tests the endurance levels of even the toughest nut to crack. That is true in more than one way.

Watching a good premise get botched up will instantly remind you of films that got it right. You can't help but think of how well late filmmaker KV Anand wove personal stories into the world of smuggling in Ayan. Enemy of the Smuggler, despite having an exceptional star cast and a niche plot, falters spectacularly as it loses sight of its priorities. In a bid to oversell himself, Samaya Murali fumbles with the most elemental things in a film: character arcs, motives, performances, plot devices, and screenplay rhythm.