Cobra is 3 hours, 3 minutes and 3 seconds long. This exhausting runtime is by design. ‘333’ is an angel number (a number sequence that contains repetition), and the hero of the film is a mathematical prodigy with schizophrenia named Madhi (Vikram). For a film obsessed with showing off mathematical calculations, I want to ask a question: how old is Madhi supposed to be? Vikram, in real life, is 56. In the film’s flashback sequence which is said to be ‘20 years ago’, he appears as a boy who isn’t older than 10 or 12. The college boy version of Madhi is played by another actor altogether (Sarjano Khalid). So, between ages 20 and 30, how did Madhi get a completely new face?
Why was my mind occupied with such calculations? Because this bizarre action thriller directed by Ajay Gnanamuthu tries so hard to be clever but is filled with such carelessness in the scripting. Madhi is an international assassin who is also a mathematics teacher in Coimbatore. He is behind the assassinations of an Indian chief minister, a Scottish prince, a French mayor, and a Russian defence minister. The budget of the film was clearly not a problem, and the team seems to have sat around a table with an atlas spread out in front of them and dropped pins wherever they pleased. And the plot followed suit.
Madhi works for a journalist (KS Ravikumar) who takes orders from an arrogant business tycoon named Rajeev Rishi (Roshan Mathew). Rajeev is obviously very, very bad because he’s always kissing women wearing bikinis; Madhi is obviously very, very good because he’s always running away from women (well-clad at that). Srinidhi Shetty plays Bhavana Menon, a professor of criminology. You’d think a woman with this specialisation would be suspicious of a man who doesn’t even have a phone number or digital footprint. But not only does she fall in love with him, she also moves into his house and lives there for years to prove her sincerity – because he hasn’t said yes yet.
This excruciating romance takes up so much time in the first half that the only reason it wasn’t trimmed must be the self-indulgent obsession with angel numbers that doesn’t even add any value to the script. Srinidhi, in real life, is 29 years old. That’s just three years older than Vikram’s son. Sure, we shouldn’t be surprised if she acts as Vikram’s mother five years later in the cherished traditions of our cinema, but I must say nevertheless that the on screen chemistry just doesn’t work.
Cricketer Irfan Pathan plays a Tamil Interpol officer called Aslan. Why Irfan Pathan for this role? Your guess is as good as mine. The actor’s lip sync is off in many places though he looks physically agile.
Cobra is set in a world where the minute details of international and local crimes are freely available to everyone, including the degree of the bullet’s trajectory. In this world, an assassin takes his cues from a flickering neon board. In this world, an undergraduate student in Chennai (Meenakshi Govindarajan) is better qualified than the Interpol in analysing crimes. In this world, investigation teams are totally okay with an outsider tagging along with them everywhere and being privy to secret interrogations.
In most films, such lapses can be forgiven. But when a film prides itself so much on its smartness, it is doubly annoying. Cobra could have been named Python – so overstuffed is its screenplay, with information and characters. I spotted veteran Malayalam actor Mammukoya in two scenes and it’s beyond me why he was standing around like a junior artist without a single dialogue for himself.
Vikram seems to be caught in an endless loop of prosthetic makeup and mental disorders, looking at his filmography. The actor doesn’t disappoint in his performance but as a once-upon-a-time fan, I want to ask why he’s so reluctant to let Anniyan Vikram go. Why must every film exploit his talent in exactly the same way? To his credit, it is only in the scenes when Madhi experiences hallucinations that there’s some inventiveness. The sequence in Russia, especially, is interesting and is among the few ideas in the script that have translated well to the screen. Let’s not get into whether this is a sensitive representation of mental health issues. Short answer: No.
Roshan Mathew seems to have relished playing the bad boy, and he carries the absurd role well, though his accent is Malayalam-tinged. Anandaraj has a small role but the actor is so much in sync with what Vikram’s character does on screen that he leaves a mark. There are shades of Aalavandhan and a few other films that avid Tamil cinema fans will be able to spot – and that’s the problem. For all its sound and fury, Cobra never really rises above what we have already seen and experienced.
The film is lavishly shot, and AR Rahman’s background score keeps things moving to a large extent. But Cobra is so unnecessarily bloated and overwrought that neither is an effective enough antidote for the audience.
Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the film's producers or any other members of its cast and crew.
Sowmya Rajendran writes on gender, culture and cinema. She has written over 25 books, including a nonfiction book on gender for adolescents. She was awarded the Sahitya Akademi’s Bal Sahitya Puraskar for her novel Mayil Will Not Be Quiet in 2015.