Arun Matheswaran’s pre-Independence era drama Captain Miller is a superbly crafted yarn through which runs a thick skein of guilt. In the new movie from director
Saani Kaayidham, several characters are asked to confront their contribution to oppression. Their remorse and subsequent rebellion elevates what could have been a regular action saga.
The Tamil-language movie (which has been dubbed into Hindi) is an RRR-style tale of ordinary Indians rising up against their tormentors, but with the bombast dialled down. Siddhartha Nuni’s smooth camerawork often views its folk heroes at eye level. Captain Miller loves spectacular, slo-mo action set pieces, but is equally curious about bandit lore.
Matheswaran’s screenplay, with dialogue by Madhan Karky, has an ambitious footprint that covers all those parts of South India that have seen Robin Hoods, reaching out even to Sri Lanka, to which Eesa decamps when the heat gets too much.
Eesa (Dhanesh) is a late-blooming rebel who enlists in the British Army to escape the caste oppression inflicted on his village by a feudal family. Authoritarian power is the same everywhere, merely changing skin tone, Eesa realises soon enough. His mutiny, aided by various rebel groups crouching in the mountainside and waiting to strike, unfolds to a propulsive background score by GV Prakash Kumar.
Matheswaran’s plotting mirrors Eesa’s approach towards uprising: rather than reinventing the wheel, both filmmaker and character build themselves one that looks shinier. Unlike SS Rajamouli’s RRR, this film has a sharper understanding of the social forces behind revolutionary movements, even though its villains are cartoonish and its hero too saintly to be entirely real.
It’s business as usual as Eesa surges towards his goal, but Matheswaran makes the journey interesting by paying close attention to the battle scenes and fleshing out secondary characters. The cast includes Shiva Rajkumar, Elango Kumaravel, Priyanka Arul Mohan and Sandeep Kishan in key roles. Aditi Balan plays a character who seemingly exists only to allow a sequel.
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