Baththa Review: Vijay Sethupathi's Gentle Gangster Drama
Balaji Tharaneetharan's first release in eight years has Vijay Sethupathi as a feared don and a schoolboy. What critics said and how it is doing.
Baththa, which opened on Oct. 1, is the first theatrical release in eight years from the Tamil director Balaji Tharaneetharan, according to The Hindu. Reviews have been warm. The box office has been modest. Both facts are part of the film's story this month.
The film
The Hindu's Bhuvanesh Chandar describes a period comedy-drama set in 1986. A dreaded don known as Baththa, played by Vijay Sethupathi, remembers who he truly is when he crosses paths with a schoolboy, Sabari, played by Sai Prithvi Raj. The listed cast also includes Lijomol Jose, Sahasra and Arjun Chidambaram. The Hindu gives a runtime of 159 minutes, and Box Office India 24 lists 2 hours 39 minutes, which is the same length.
What critics said
Chandar calls it a delightfully funny, moving comedy-drama. He says the first half sails smoothly because of the period setting and Sethupathi returning to a zone he mastered in films such as Idharkuthane Aasaipattai Balakumara and Kadhalum Kadandhu Pogum. He says the film truly comes alive in a darkly comical inciting incident involving Sabari and the don.
The review says the choice to tell the story through the boy's eyes is the film's strength. Chandar notes that Balaji could have made it a whodunit about the don's many enemies, but chose to keep the story simple, with the boy as narrator, and finds room for hilarious ideas, including one involving powdered rusk. He says the screenplay in typical Balaji Tharaneetharan fashion makes you both cry and laugh.
The review mentions that the film was inspired by events from the director's own childhood in Triplicane, which Balaji told The Hindu in a pre-release conversation. Chandar also writes that momentum dips in places, though the excerpt we had access to does not include the full detail of that criticism.
The numbers
Koimoi's Day 8 report says the film had limited pre-release buzz and little promotion, and that its opening week earned Rs 15.42 crore net in India, which it compares with Sardar 2's Rs 15.21 crore in its opening week. Koimoi adds that the film was released only in southern India at first and would now be distributed more widely because of demand. Times of India reported that the film reached Rs 26.78 crore net after 14 days, according to Sacnilk. Box Office India 24 lists Rs 23.70 crore net through Day 17, which does not match the Sacnilk figure. Trackers differ, and the gap is more than 10 percent.
The daily pattern in the Times of India report is clear. The film opened at Rs 1.50 crore on a Thursday, climbed to Rs 3.10 crore on the first Sunday, held at Rs 3.20 crore on the second Sunday and fell to Rs 1.02 crore on the second Wednesday. That is a pattern of good weekends and thin weekdays, and Koimoi points to limited promotion and a limited number of screens in the opening week.
Why it matters
Vijay Sethupathi's Wikipedia entry lists a National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor for Super Deluxe, and credits him with a long run of Tamil hits. A gentle film that critics like but audiences have found slowly is a reminder that an actor with that record does not guarantee a big opening. The Koimoi report makes a comparison with Sardar 2 that is a trade commentary, not a ranking of quality.
What we could not confirm
We could not confirm which tracker's collection is closest to the producers' figure, because none of the sources quotes an official number. We read The Hindu's review in part, so we do not describe its later passages. We have not seen the film. The claim that the release was limited to the south in the first week comes from Koimoi alone.
Sources
*Cover photo: Balooga12345, Wikimedia Commons, *[*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vijay_Sethupathi.jpg*](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vijay_Sethupathi.jpg)* (CC BY-SA 4.0).*