Mark Antony review: This sci-fi action film simply fails to work

In Mark Antony, it is hard to tell if the stilted acting, frantic music, and absurd storyline are supposed to be parodies, or if director Adhik Ravichandran really thinks this is how silly audiences are. A scientist (Selvaraghavan cameo) in 1975 invents a phone that can call people in the past and hence, change the future. Meanwhile, Antony (Vishal) is a beloved gangster who is suddenly murdered, and his best friend and partner in crime Jackie (SJ Suryah) survives into the mid-1990s, when the film is set, to become ‘the godfather’ of Chennai. Antony’s son Mark (also Vishal, sigh) is a mechanic who loathes even his father’s memory. Jackie’s son Madhan (do I need to tell you?) is a spoilt wastrel. But there’s a plot twist. 

Actually, the plot spends the whole film twisting itself into knots you could see a mile away on a foggy night wearing sunglasses. Attempts to change the past, betrayal, and identically bad acting are all around, while eye-popping colours and pounding music come and go with headache-inducing frequency.

Vishal as Antony is mildly more tolerable than Vishal as the son Mark. The film suggests that Mark is in his 30s. The brief for Vishal in this role was likely ‘not very bright, but a man with a good heart’. But the actor performs this by sounding more like a confused five-year-old, rather than an adult man. As Antony, he’s the usual Tamil cinema veshti-clad, glowering, moustachioed rowdy. Like all such Kollywood rowdies, the moustache is a large part of his personality, which he keeps stroking in the middle of killing 50 men, just in case the murderous rampage wasn’t enough to signal his (toxic) masculinity. 

SJ Suryah brings his over-the-top acting, with little to differentiate between the son version and father version, apart from bad wigs. His villainy is a joke at the expense of the movie. Yet, he manages to keep you moderately engaged. 

Amidst all the chaotic twists and turns of the plot is a generous helping of sexualising trans women, and homophobic jokes with even an ‘avanaa nee’ line thrown in. The reference is to a well-known dialogue by comedian Vadivelu, meant to mock gay men. The mockery is amplified by Y GMahendran playing an offensive take on a gay man, called Gowrie. The string of offenses doesn’t end there. 

Dragged into all this is the AI recreation of actor Silk Smitha, once a towering figure of Kollywood, resurrected here for cheap thrills and callbacks to Tamil films of the 70s and 80s. The idea of using AI to bring back a woman actor whose representation in Kollywood was already problematic, increases the sense of unease we feel, as if not even in death can Silk be remembered with dignity. 

The callbacks don’t end there either. Mark Antony is peppered with references to AIADMK leaders and film icons MGR and Jayalalithaa. The title itself, as most will recognise, refers to the legendary role of Mark Antony played by the late Raghuvaran in the Rajini-starrer Baassha (1995). Unfortunately, the film is not a homage of any sort to an actor of Raghuvaran’s calibre. 

The sci-fi element of the film—the phone that can make calls to people in the past– is the brainchild of bad CGI and worse logic, only serving to nudge the story along its predictable path. The phone sparkles and sends up lightning in an effort as old as the first Frankenstein movie. This phone is there only to enable every conceivable, convenient plot twist. 

With much of the comedy relying on homophobia, as mentioned, when not being simply cringe-worthy, Mark Antony fails in that department too. 

For the portions set in the 70s, Mark Antony brings out lurid colours, countless references to Rajini and Kamal Hassan films of that decade, and a manic energy that disperses away without evoking any kind of nostalgia for that era. Possibly, the hit song ‘Varudhu Varudhu Ada Vilagu’ from Thoongathey Thambi Thoongathey (actually released in 1983) is now, deeply unfortunately, inseparable from scenes of Vishal as Antony ricocheting off walls as he goes on yet another murderous rampage.

Ritu Verma as Ramya, Mark’s love interest, is simply there because Tamil cinema demands a heroine. She has precious little else to do than tick a box with her presence. Redin Kingsley hangs around the hero providing lacklustre jokes and even Nizhalgal Ravi—one of the most iconic villains of Tamil cinema—leaves you aghast at how spectacularly he’s wasted in the film.

The music and background have you doubting your own memory.

After all the confusion about whether the film would release or not, now that it’s finally in theatres, I can only think of Vimal’s joke in Kalakalappu (2012): “Idhuku paruthimoota godownlaye irundhurkalame” (vaguely translated to mean that a great deal of energy has been put into a wasted effort).

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 producers or any other members of its cast and crew.