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There can be no doubt that Chimbudeven is an interesting filmmaker. Most of his films can be explained as rather intriguing one-liners — a laughathon featuring twins, a coward king and a brave revolutionary, set in the British period (Imsai Arasan); two strugglers become God for a while (Arai en 305-il Kadavul); a Cowboy-Western in Tamil (Irumbu Kottai Murattu Singam); a magic realism film featuring four people and four different timelines (Oru Kanniyum Moonu Kalavanigalum); a fantasy adventure film featuring a huge superstar shedding his larger-than-life image (Puli); a hyperlink anthology film featuring six different stories (Kasada Thapara).
The successes and failures of his attempts notwithstanding, there can be no doubt that Chimbudeven is an interesting filmmaker. His latest film, Boat, mostly set in the middle of an ocean, is inspired by classics like Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men and Ernest Hemingway’s book The Old Man and the Sea and has all the makings of an interesting film. If only…
Boat is set in 1943. World War 2 is on, and there is shelling happening in Madras. All the film’s players find themselves in the British camps next to the Madras coastline. Except for Kumaran (Yogi Babu), and his grandmother (Kullapulli Leela), every other primary protagonist is a stereotype that we know will gradually unravel over the next two hours. Purely by a narrative choice that we are forced to accept, they find themselves in Kumaran’s boat, which is headed out to the middle of nowhere. Through this journey, the filmmaker wants to guide us through an introspective tour about the search for identity, the rampant casteism and communalism, and peel through our masks to find humanity.
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Now, this is where 12 Angry Men come in, and we see each of them discussing various issues, one after the other, and sometimes over one another. It is less a conversation and more of a cacophony, and none are wiser at the end of it. We heard those 12 Angry Men talk and discuss and find a solution because the stakes were high, and it was a singular agenda. Here, for the longest time, it is just a competition between laying bare their prejudices and finding ways to stay alive. Throw in a blood-thirsty shark, a damaged boat with water seeping in, and people with egos the size of the ocean, Boat should have been deeper and more incisive, but it ends up being as superficial as the film’s messaging.
Yogi Babu in a still from Boat
The core plot of Boat is about urbanisation and othering the people of the land. While it is disappointing that this message remains relevant, the issue is pertinent even in today’s political landscape. With such an important issue in hand, the verbose nature of the film proves to be quite a deterrent. Every character either plays a game of one-upmanship or resorts to spouting cliches. What works for the film is the way it has been shot. It never gets tiresome to look at the vast expanse of the ocean, and the beauty of the nature that the film wants to showcase. It is a wonderful introspection of how the human species is just a speck in the original scheme of things, and how it is our ego that fails to understand it all. Also, it is disappointing that Boat capsizes on its excesses without properly capitalising on the essentials.
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Chimbudeven, known for getting the casting right in most of his films, does well in Boat too. It is their earnestness that salvages a lot of the scenes, which are unfortunately bland. What is supposed to be an effective elevation scene is an ordinary one. What is supposed to be a major revelation is unintentionally comical because of what follows. A funny gag involving one of the biggest films of Indian cinema doesn’t reach its full potential. Despite briefly venturing into some interesting dark spaces, the film resorts to certain cop-outs that goes against the grain of the characters.
Boat is filled with so many holes of ‘what-ifs’ and ‘could-haves’ that it has no way to go except down, and unfortunately, it does leaving no survivors.
Boat Movie cast: Yogi Babu, MS Bhaskar, Gouri Kishan, Chinni Jayanth
Boat Movie director: Chimbudeven
Boat Movie rating: 2 stars
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