When Cinema Lost the Plot and Found an Axe

I love movies. Let me establish that before somebody decides that the this man has become allergic to entertainment.

I’ve spent enough hours watching films to know the difference between a filmmaker who understands his craft and one who thinks turning the screen red is a substitute for writing a decent story.

And lately, watching some of our mainstream Indian cinema, I have begun to wonder whether the scriptwriters’ rooms have been replaced by weapon shops.

The formula appears remarkably simple.

Take a hero. Give him a childhood trauma, an anger problem, a questionable relationship with reality and the emotional intelligence of a brick. Add fifty villains, several hundred litres of artificial blood, a background score loud enough to frighten the neighbours, and a slow-motion shot of the hero walking away from an explosion.

Congratulations. We have cinema.

Apparently.

KOLLYWOOD: The Body Count Is Impressive. Where Is the Story?

Tamil cinema has given us extraordinary filmmakers, remarkable performances and films that understand the relationship between violence, human nature and consequence.

Which makes the current obsession with escalating brutality all the more frustrating.

Take Leo. The film builds a world of criminal violence around Vijay’s character, with Lokesh Kanagaraj delivering the kind of action spectacle audiences have come to expect from him. But somewhere in this cinematic universe, I would love to see a character resolve a problem without leaving half the population requiring emergency medical attention.

And then there is Rathnam, a film whose excessive violence was specifically criticised for overwhelming an already overstuffed screenplay.

At some point, one has to ask: are we watching a story unfold, or are we watching a production team demonstrate how many different ways it can stage a fight?

Dear filmmakers, a fight scene is supposed to serve the story. It is not a compulsory subject in which every commercial film must submit a practical examination.

A character does not become more interesting because he can inflict more damage. A director does not become more talented because his stunt coordinator has run out of furniture to break.

And no, making the hero look invincible does not make the screenplay invincible to criticism.

TOLLYWOOD: The Hero Is Larger Than Life. The Story Has Gone Missing.

Telugu cinema has mastered the art of spectacle. The scale, the music, the staging and the sheer audacity of its best commercial films can be magnificent.

But spectacle is a dangerous thing when it becomes the only thing a film has left to offer.

Consider Salaar. Its world is built around power, loyalty, betrayal and extraordinary brutality. There is a potentially compelling conflict buried beneath all that bloodshed.

The question is whether every escalation makes the conflict more meaningful or merely makes the next fight more expensive.

Then comes Pushpa 2: The Rule, with its sprawling runtime and increasingly extravagant action sequences. The film pushes its violent spectacle further as the story progresses.

At this rate, the next instalment may require a separate interval for the audience to recover from the interval.

And what exactly are we celebrating when the hero can walk through an army of men as though human anatomy were merely a suggestion?

I understand cinematic exaggeration. I understand larger-than-life heroes. I understand the thrill of watching an impossible stunt executed perfectly.

What I struggle to understand is the assumption that a character becomes more powerful every time somebody else’s head meets a weapon.

There was a time when a hero’s greatness could be demonstrated through courage, sacrifice, intelligence or restraint.

Now, restraint appears to be the one superpower our heroes are never allowed to possess.

BOLLYWOOD: Meet the Man Who Mistook His Anger for a Personality.

Hindi cinema deserves its own discussion because Animal took the conversation about cinematic violence somewhere particularly uncomfortable.

Ranbir Kapoor’s character is presented through a world of obsession, paternal validation, aggression and disturbing relationships. The film generated enormous debate about its depiction of masculinity and its treatment of women.

And that debate is worth having.

My problem isn’t that cinema should never portray a violent, misogynistic or morally repulsive character. Some of the greatest films ever made have done precisely that.

My problem begins when a film’s visual grammar, music and dramatic framing risk making brutality feel aspirational even when the character’s behaviour deserves scrutiny.

There is a difference between showing a terrible man and spending three hours making his terrible behaviour look spectacular.

Apparently, a man can massacre people, mistreat his wife, confuse possessiveness with love and still be packaged with the cinematic swagger of somebody selling an inspirational course on masculinity.

Somewhere, the marketing department is probably preparing a motivational poster.

Believe in yourself. Respect no boundaries. Carry an axe.

Naturally, the fine print is unavailable.

And then there is Kill, which takes violent action to an extreme aboard a train. It is a useful counterpoint because violence can be the very subject of an action film without automatically becoming proof of artistic failure.

But even a film that understands its genre can occasionally become so pleased with its own brutality that the spectacle begins to wear thin.

Which brings us to the larger problem.

If violence is the story, fine. Explore it. Examine its consequences. Make us uncomfortable. Show us something about the people who commit it and the people who suffer from it.

But if violence is merely the loudest thing in a film, turning up the volume isn’t going to fix the screenplay.

The Great Indian Confusion: Certification Is Not Creativity.

Let us get one thing straight.

I am not asking filmmakers to make films without violence. I am not suggesting that every movie should be a family drama in which everybody communicates peacefully over a cup of tea.

Cinema has every right to explore revenge, war, crime, brutality and the ugliest corners of human nature.

Some of my favourite films are hardly gentle experiences.

But there is a difference between depicting violence and using violence as a substitute for imagination.

There is also a difference between a film intended for adults and a film that assumes an adult audience will accept anything as long as it arrives with an impressive soundtrack and a recognisable star.

Certification tells us something about a film’s suitability for particular audiences. It does not certify the quality of its writing, the intelligence of its direction or the originality of its ideas.

A film can be appropriately certified, commercially successful and technically accomplished and still leave us wondering why we spent three hours watching it.

All those departments can do their jobs perfectly while the story fails to justify its existence.

That, dear industry, is not a censorship problem. It is a filmmaking problem.

And What Exactly Are We Selling to the Next Generation?

Here is where the conversation becomes more serious.

A film does not automatically make someone violent. Audiences are not mindless creatures who watch a fight on Friday and begin looking for victims on Saturday.

That argument is simplistic, and I have little patience for simplistic arguments.

But cinema does shape cultural imagery. It influences what looks heroic, what gets celebrated, what becomes a meme and what audiences repeatedly see presented as power.

When aggression is consistently packaged as charisma, intimidation as leadership, possessiveness as love and revenge as the ultimate form of justice, it is reasonable to ask what those choices communicate.

Not because every viewer will imitate a character.

Because stories help establish the language through which societies discuss their heroes.

And if every hero must be angrier, bloodier, more possessive and more destructive than the previous one, perhaps we should ask whether our imagination is expanding or simply becoming more expensive.

The irony is extraordinary.

We live in a country with thousands of stories worth telling. Stories about extraordinary courage, difficult moral choices, institutional failures, human resilience, historical complexity, ordinary people doing remarkable things and remarkable people behaving terribly.

We have mythology, literature, history, social upheaval, scientific achievement, political intrigue and the infinitely complicated business of being human.

And yet, sometimes, it feels as though we have assembled an entire film industry only to ask one question:

How many people can the hero defeat before the next song?

What a magnificent waste of imagination.

A Final Word From Someone Who Still Loves Movies

I don’t want cinema to become polite.

I don’t want filmmakers to seek my approval.

I certainly don’t want every director to make films according to my preferences. The world would be a profoundly boring place if every moviegoer agreed with me.

I want filmmakers to take risks, tell uncomfortable stories, challenge conventions and make films that stay with us long after the credits roll.

Make a brutal film if the story demands brutality.

Make a disturbing film if you have something disturbing to say.

Make a revenge film that leaves us questioning revenge. Make a gangster film that reveals something about power. Make a film about a monster that forces us to confront the conditions that allow monsters to flourish.

But please, for the love of cinema, give us a reason to watch.

A well-written character can be more terrifying than a hundred anonymous men falling to the floor.

A moment of silence can be more powerful than ten minutes of background music announcing that something important is happening.

And a genuinely intelligent story can do something that the most spectacular action sequence cannot.

It can make us think.

Perhaps that is the real problem. Thinking doesn’t always produce a viral clip. Restraint doesn’t necessarily sell tickets in the same way as a spectacular fight. A morally complicated character cannot always be reduced to a fan-club slogan.

But that is precisely why good filmmaking matters.

Cinema is not obliged to educate us, moralise at us or make us better people.

It is, however, an art form capable of doing considerably more than making us cheer when another man is knocked unconscious in slow motion.

So here is my humble request to the makers of Kollywood, Tollywood, Bollywood and every other wood that decides to join this competition.

Keep the violence if you must.

Keep the heroes, the villains, the grand entrances, the spectacular stunts and the thunderous music.

Just remember to bring a story along.

Because if I wanted to spend three hours watching people hit one another without any meaningful purpose, I could save the price of the ticket and attend a badly organised family gathering.

At least there, the arguments would be original.

And that is today’s cut.

Not because cinema has become too violent to watch.

Because too much of it seems to have forgotten that violence, like every other cinematic device, is supposed to serve the story.

Not replace it.