Michael's stylised action and superb Sundeep Kishan fail to save the script

Cast: Sundeep Kishan, Divyansha Kaushik, Vijay Sethupathi, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, Gautham Vasudev Menon 

A high-voltage gangster action flick with a dramatic love story, Michael leaves you thinking “been there, seen that”. The film lacks innovation in its storyline and struggles with the pace of its screenplay. 

But it’s sure to attract the single-screen audience as it delivers a spirited punch as an action thriller. And why not? It features a near-superhuman hero delivering stylised, bone-breaking action sequences on a heightened cinematic scale. And it features a toned, intense, and enraged Sundeep Kishan giving his absolute best. 

Featuring Sundeep Kishan and Divyansha Kaushik in lead roles, along with entertaining cameos by Vijay Sethupathi and Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, Michael begins with a young orphaned boy swimming onshore to fight for his place in the world. He ends up saving the life of a dreaded gangster Gurunath (Gautham Vasudev Menon), who then asks his henchman Swamy (Ayappa Sharma) to raise Michael. 

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A few years later, Gurunath expanded his business of dance bars in Mumbai and has to deal with the childish mistakes of his son, Rathan (Anish Kuruvilla), a classic on-screen spoiled brat. Michael saves his life once again. He is assigned the task of capturing one of Gurunath’s attackers and killing him, along with his daughter Theera (Divyansha Kaushik).

But as goes with every over-the-top action movie, Michael instead falls in love with the girl, a lithe dancer, and saves her father’s life. That’s where the conflict lies and puts Michael on a collision course with Rathan and his goons. What follows is a story of kidnapping, violence, and revenge, with the movie taking impossible leaps of faith to only culminate in a long drawn-out climax. 

Director Ranjit Jeyakodi doesn’t believe in telling a crisply told, simple story. He has stylised each character with a flourish, creating signature touches and symbolic undertones to their actions. 

Gurunath is a well-read gangster whose book collection ranges from The Godfather to Old Man and the Sea. His conclusive remarks though tend to be simplistic, given his reading list on display. 

Michael is a young boy struggling to deal with a traumatic past but he speaks very little. Most of his emotions are played out through his eyes. Sundeep does a fine job of expressing himself with limited dialogue, maintaining an undercurrent of tension in his body language throughout. In the portions where he falls in love, he is equally tender. As a lean mean fighting machine, he is in top form; rolling his punches with furious power. 

Reflecting the filmmaker’s inspiration, Michael is replete with visual references—from a Bruce Lee movie being screened in a theatre to an Amitabh Bachchan poster from Deewar framing the backdrop of a fight sequence. Set in the ‘90s, its production design and mood lighting is bang on. Kiran Koushik’s cinematography and the music score by Sam CS are definite high points in the film. At times, however, the visual references can look a bit overdone—like hanging a spider in the backdrop of the heroine’s stage performance. Symbolism only works when it is suggested. 

Michael falls far short in its story. Divyansha’s character doesn’t come across as likeable enough, even though the protagonist’s helpless slide into love is done well. The film also drags in its execution of emotional scenes; dialogues stretch out for too long, sometimes. 

Even the visual treatment and high-octane action choreography can offer enough cushion for the script to survive, as they only end up plugging holes in the plot’s narrative. In the second half, with entertaining cameos by Vijay Sethupathi and Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, it picks up the pace and the story evolves. But it quickly retreats into the non-stop action mode, which makes you wonder if Michael is actually an alter-ego Avenger as his capacity to punch, kick, and maim endlessly is rather beyond human levels. 

Michael is an action overload for fans of both the genre and Sundeep Kishan. For others, there’s plenty more to explore at the movies this weekend. 

Rating: 2.5/5