Maharaja Review

Maharaja is a quiet Chennai barber whose wife was killed when a runaway truck crashed into a building; his baby daughter survived because a metal dustbin fell over her, and father and daughter have treated the bin, which they call Lakshmi, as family ever since. When he walks into a police station to report it stolen and offers a large bribe to get it back, the officers laugh, then take his money, then start to wonder what he really wants.

Nithilan Saminathan and the editor Philomin Raj cut between two timelines, one following Maharaja and one following Anurag Kashyap's Selvam, a home-invading killer with a wife and small daughter of his own, and the puzzle of how the threads connect keeps the first two hours taut. Vijay Sethupathi, in his 50th lead role, does almost everything with stillness, and Kashyap is a genuinely menacing presence. The fight choreography is rough and effective.

The final reveal is ingenious in construction and heavy in what it leans on, and reviews split accordingly, from praise for a morally challenging twist to The Indian Express finding it more interested in seeming dark than being so. After its Netflix debut it opened in China, where it became the highest-grossing South Indian film to that point.