‘Baththa’ movie review: Balaji Tharaneetharan returns with a delightfully funny, poignant comedy-drama

Who are we when we no longer fulfill the role that society has imposed on us? In life, we may never realize what we suppressed, what led us to put on that mask, while causing others to rust. The dreaded don, the titular Baththa (Vijay Sethupathi), is reminded of who he really is when he accidentally crosses paths with a schoolboy in Baththa, director Balaji Tharaneetharan’s first theatrical production in eight years.

Set in 1986, the seed of Balaji Tharaneetharan’s story is something many of us can easily relate to. When I was studying in primary school in Thiruvottiyur, Chennai, a particularly difficult classmate terrorized our class, claiming to be a relative of a local gangster. The gangster’s reputation was well known. One rumor said he bit off an enemy’s ear before swallowing him whole. In Baththa, Sabari (a wonderful Sai Prithvi Raj) experiences an event that shakes him to the core – a feared don named Baththa beats up a bloody man in the middle of the street. When he tells his buddies, they all recall the stories they’ve heard about the gangster: “Baththa has a pet lion in his cage,” “He once broke through a prison cell with sheer force,” “He once heard a man slander his name from miles away,” and so on. Baththa can do it. Baththa can do it. Baththa is the Undertaker of this world, who we all know has seven lives.

Still life from ‘Baththa’ | Photo credit: Special arrangement

But the Baththa we see for the first time is just a local brute who has graced our screens many times. He is a brute who instills fear among the locals, hangs out with his yes-men, and though he adores his daughter Thenmozhi (Sahasra Shree) and wife Kanimaa (Lijomol Jose), his home life also has its moments of outbursts. But for Sabari, who lives with his loving mother (Santhy Balachandran) and father (Hari Krishnan), Baththa is a ruthless beast in human form.

What happens when Sabari and Baththa cross paths in an unfortunate event that changes their lives forever?

Baththa (Tamil)

Directed by Balaji Tharaneetharan

Cast: Vijay Sethupathi, Lijomol Jose, Sai Prithvi Raj, Sahasra, Arjun Chidambaram

Length: 159 minutes

Plot: A feared don rediscovers his inner child when an unlikely encounter forces him to confront the person he buried under the mask of fear

The first half of the film flows smoothly, thanks to the period setting and Vijay Sethupathi’s return to the zone he has long dominated through films like Idharkuthane Aasaipattai Balakumara and Kadhalum Kadandhu Pogum. But Baththa, which begins like any other gangster drama, really comes alive during this unique, darkly comic inciting incident involving Sabari and Baththa.

In a pre-release chat with The Hindu, Balaji revealed that Baththa was inspired by events he witnessed in his childhood in Triplicane, and Sabari reminds us of what it was like to be a child. He’s a naive but secretly street kid, and Balaji beautifully makes you sit shotgun in a car driven by a kid who’s only partially in control of his situation.

Moreover, the unpleasant situation that befalls the gangster translates into a fear so primitive that those who grew up in the era before mobile phones would instinctively remember how this fear manifested many times behind closed doors. But in typical Balaji Tharaneetharan fashion, the script will make you cry as well as laugh at Bathth.

Interestingly, the writer-director could have gone a different route – he could have made it a whore by portraying many of Baththa’s enemies like Jyoti (Arjun Chidambaram) as the culprits. We could learn much later how Baththa landed in his misfortune. It could have been a story where Baththa was the protagonist and not a child. But Balaji does not complicate his film; He takes you through Sabari’s perspective as he narrates and finds plenty of opportunities to throw in some genuinely hilarious ideas, like the one involving the powdered cracker.

Still life from ‘Baththa’ | Photo credit: Special arrangement

Even if the pace slows down in the second half, something in Balaji’s screenplay will grab your attention or make you laugh.

This simple and sweet story also plays a large part in the period setting, which would lose much of its essence in today’s world, where we are so busy looking at our phones and making split-second decisions. But what Balaji conveys through this story is relevant and in a way a film like Baththa is necessary today.

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You might have seen a woman and child like Kannima and Thenmozhi sitting outside a police station waiting for a loved one who has gone missing. You would steal a few rupees from your father’s pocket to buy snacks from a roadside shop. That annoying uncle from your neighborhood would take you and your family shopping to T Nagar and I’m sure you were dressed as a cop or a freedom fighter. You would attend a wedding or a party where a man would be on stage happily singing out of tune and wearing a mirrored costume that could blind you. And I’m sure you’d be too attached to a toy that mysteriously disappeared one day.

As Balaji described in our interview, “those were golden days” and Baththa, apart from being a simple, moving film about the goodness in us, is also a tribute to those golden days. As the titular don says at a key moment, “You only realize the value of certain things when it’s near the end.”

Baththa is currently running in theatres

Published – 01 Oct 2026 16:08 IST