Enemy of the Smuggler movie review: A gritty premise weighed down by commercial compulsions

Tamil cinema’s love of gangster drama has been explored to exhaustion, so the arrival of yet another gangster flick feels tiresome. However, the recently-released Enemy of the Smuggler makes a compelling case for a watch — former IRS officer T Samaya Murali directed it, so you naturally expect his on-field expertise to lend the film a degree of authenticity. Now, while this insider’s perspective on the subject matter does come across in the film, as cinema has proven many times, a few good ideas do not necessarily guarantee a good film.

Enemy of the Smuggler — the film’s first enemy being this lukewarm, on-the-nose title — starts intriguingly. Despite having all the markings of a typical gangster flick, you sense the possibility of something promising when a familiar situation we have seen in many engaging action dramas is presented: a middle-class customs worker (Saran Shakthi playing Amar) with a desperate need for money has something to do with a 3000-kilo heroin consignment (worth ₹25000 crore) being smuggled by an international syndicate member (Lal plays Khadar Bhai). When the flashback opens, we learn that Amar joined the smuggling trade to escape a precarious position. With this set-up, director Samaya Murai promises a gritty world of smuggling, but within the first 30 minutes, those promises begin to unravel.

When JD Chakravarthy, playing smuggling kingpin Lingam, gets a pretentious ‘mass’ entrance and a fight sequence, you get suspicious about the kind of film Enemy of the Smuggler wishes to be. In quick succession, the heroine (Smeha plays Pavithra) enters on a scooty and falls for the hero, Amar, after he saves an innocent woman on the street. The done-to-dust masala template of 2000s Tamil cinema gets one more subscriber. Everything that follows is as predictable as ever — a heist the protagonists predictably pull off, an action scene followed by an item song, a betrayal within the gang…you get the gist.

In fact, the film apes the template so much that it becomes the latest addition to the list of films with two distinct halves — the first half is meant to be ‘massy,’ while much of the meat of the story is reserved for the latter. And the chief issue with the first half is that Samaya Murali seems to have felt the need to add pulpy elements to make it more commercially viable. While it’s nothing wrong to do, these ideas are executed so amateurishly that getting through these murky stretches tests your patience.

You also begin to see through a lot of the contrived machinations, like why a young woman like Pavithra is brought into the mix or how the equation between Lingam and Amar might change. The film’s emotional beats are very ineffective. Modern audiences will question a protagonist — who must be under tremendous mental pressure due to his circumstances — allowing himself the time to woo and dance around the tree for a woman he randomly exchanged glances with on the street. Of course, Amar isn’t a man with many redeemable qualities, but the film establishes that he does everything for the sake of his mother (Radikaa Sarathkumar). Which is why much of what he does makes no emotional sense.

Fortunately, Enemy of the Smuggler becomes the film it was meant to be once the director himself appears as DC Murali Krishna (he neatly gifts himself a ‘mass-elevation’ fight scene). A high-stakes heist of a consignment at the Mundra port accelerates the story. While the investigation itself doesn’t surprise one, the fact that an international syndicate might go after the smaller fish keeps you invested. This is, of course, before the film reaches a predictable end with a climactic showdown — the convenient climax leaves you chuckling, especially at the rather generous liberties the film takes with police procedure.

Enemy of the Smuggler could have been a neat little gangster drama had it had the conviction to be more straightforward. What surprises one is that Samaya Murali seems to intuitively understand the demands of mainstream filmmaking. A fight scene at a police station is innovatively conceived, showing us how a talented cop would fight. Also look at his usage of Ilaiyaraaja’s ‘Nila Adhu Vaanathumele’ — playing Raaja’s tracks is the trend of the times, but this Nayakan track also fits aptly with the film’s maritime smuggling theme. However, such moments of ingenuity are constantly interrupted by bouts of formulaic filmmaking. One wishes the filmmaker had trusted his own experience a little more, for the more compelling film here is the one buried beneath all the unnecessary cinematic embellishments.

Enemy of the Smuggler is currently running in theatres