Trigger

Trigger Movie Synopsis: An undercover cop has to stop the mastermind behind a child kidnapping racket, which will also lead to the redemption of his Azheimer’s-affected father, a former policeman.

Trigger Movie Review: Trigger involves a crime that spans almost three decades. The film starts off with a daring attack on the police commissioner’s office, in 1993. The mastermind behind this attack Michael (Rahul Dev Shetty, who comes up with a chilling performance) goes behind bars on a petty charge to run his operation out of prison. The action then cuts to the present, 2021, to be specific, when we are introduced to Prabhakaran (Atharvaa) and his family. His father Sathya Moorthy was once a cop, who had to quit the force under a cloud of doubt, and is now suffering from Azheimer’s. The do-gooder Prabha is recruited by the commissioner (Azhagamperumal) into an undercover team who look into corruption in the force and handle cases extra-judicially.

The kidnapping of Nisha (Baby Dhikshitha), a child whom his brother and sister-in-law plan to adopt, brings a child racket operation to Prabha’s notice. As he starts digging, he realises that the crime could be connected to a case his father was pursuing in 1993. Michael, too, realises that his cover has blown and soon, the cop and criminal are involved in a tense battle of brains and brawn.

Sam Anton, who had delivered the solid cop drama 100, teams up with Atharvaa again to give us an almost edge-of-the-seat action thriller that has enough smartness to keep us hooked. The director spins his tale around the concept of deviation crime, through which a criminal enterprise commits a major crime by diverting the police’s attention to a string of smaller crimes that are committed around the same time. In keeping with this nature of the crime, he also comes up with scenes in which the action takes place in multiple places simultaneously. Thanks to some clever writing that is enhanced by deft editing by Ruben, the filmmaker gives us events that happen in parallel, which not only generate suspense but also give the scenes some propulsion. By making the hero’s mission a personal one as well, he also ensures emotional connection. He also makes the villain powerful enough so that his protagonist also appears vulnerable, making us fear for his safety and that of those around him.

In Atharvaa, he has a lead who can be dashing and make us root for Prabha. Some of the supporting cast are also quite effective and make us empathise with their characters effortlessly. We have Chinni Jayanth, who plays a member of Prabha’s team, and gets a heroic moment. Arun Pandian, too, is convincing as a hapless man who is losing his memory. The track involving Prabha’s brother (Krishna) and sister-in-law (Vinothini) has shades of what we had seen in Kuttram 23, but the actors manage to sell this, too.

If there are any niggles, they are largely minor. Like, the overlong action scenes, which, despite being kinetic, are quite over-the-top and not-so-imaginative. The opening scenes that set up the plot are also somewhat shaky, including an ill-thought-out song involving Prabha and his team members. But the director wisely refrains from giving us a full-fledged romantic track. Instead, we get the mandatory love interest (in the form of Tanya Ravichandran), but she is weaved into the plot in an effective way.