Action is at the core of director Vijay’s latest Mission: Chapter 1, but it doesn’t start off with all guns blazing. A child, Sana, is seriously unwell in Tamil Nadu and needs to be operated upon at the earliest. As with most cases shown in movies, this is somewhat of a ‘rarest of the rare’ scenario and it needs the attention of a hospital in London.
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Taking care of her is her father, Gunasekar aka Guna (Arun Vijay), who will go to any extent to save his daughter. He sells off his trusted jeep. He pawns some other belongings, for which he gets a Rs 10 note in return. Confused? The bearer of this Rs 10 note will get Rs 30 lakh in the UK, we are told, getting some insight into how the hawala system works.
Guna heads to the UK for his daughter’s treatment, but something else is in store for him there. He lands in prison post a scuffle. How will he get out and re-unite with his daughter?
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Mission’s story is as old as the hills and the screenplay predictable, but to director Vijay’s credit, it atleast keeps you fairly engaged.
Mission: Chapter 1 (Tamil)
But is that enough to make his current Mission a great success? Perhaps not, because, it shifts focus all too quickly into smaller stories within the core tale. There are sub-plots about a terrorist organisation, moles in the police force and a cunning hospital janitor; all while Guna is supposed to be with his daughter but is forced into a duel he didn’t expect. A person who ended up in hospital with an injury is suddenly brought to screen more than an hour later, much after we’ve forgotten about him.
But the bigger problem is the invincibility of the protagonist. It’s like Guna knows solutions even before problems arrive.
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Arun Vijay in ‘Mission: Chapter 1’
As Guna, Arun Vijay is sincere and focussed, especially in the action sequences, in which he gives it his all. While Amy Jackson – one still remembers her from Madrassaptinam – gets totry out some stunts and Tamil lines, Nimisha Sajayan has little to do. Child artiste Iyal is effective, as is the antagonist, Omar, played by Bharat Bopanna.
Two unlikely places – a hospital and a jail – become some of characters in this thriller. It’s the dynamics inside these places that hold mild interest but there’s not enough time to explore all that when there are bigger stakes at play. Like a well-staged grand action sequence with hundreds of prisoners, during which an unlikely weapon makes a big impact.
Audiences who watched the superhit 2023 Tamil film Jailermight be tempted to look out for some comparisons while watching Mission: Chapter 1, but that’s not the only Rajinikanth connection: there’s also a Punjabi character, much like in the Superstar’s popular 1995 film Baasha.
Music composer GV Prakash’s score elevates the action in Mission: Chapter 1 and Sandeep Vijay’s frames keep up with the pace, but director Vijay’s latest outing is a tad too predictable for its own good. We’re hoping that a ‘Chapter 2’ is not on the cards.