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The Vijay Sethupathi-starrer Maharaja was a huge hit in cinemas and now, it's creating waves on Netflix. Since the time it dropped on the streaming giant, it is common to see people raving about it and it has many more netizens curious, leading to its higher viewership and social media chatter. What has gone in Maharaja’s favour big time is its novel script. If it was a Hollywood film, it would have had a high chance of winning the Best Original Screenplay and this speaks volumes of writer-director Nithilan Swaminathan’s writing. Interestingly, the film has a solid connection with Sidharth Malhotra’s spy comedy A Gentleman (2017). But before you read further, be forewarned that the article has major spoilers.
Vijay Sethupathi-starrer Maharaja has THIS connection with Sidharth Malhotra’s spy comedy A Gentleman (WARNING: Spoilers ahead)
Maharaja begins showing the protagonist, Maharaja, complaining to the police that three thieves burgled his place and ran away with a dustbin, which he and his daughter Sachana Namidass have named Jothi. The cops try to drive him away. But when he remains adamant and offers lakhs of rupees, they agree to find it. A parallel track, meanwhile, shows Selvam (Anurag Kashyap) having a secret life wherein he raids houses with the help of his gang and even kills and rapes the house residents. A shot shows the dustbin ‘Lakshmi’ placed in Selvam’s house, which makes viewers assume that he is the one who stole the item from Maharaja’s place.
But just after the intermission, viewers get the jolt of their lives when they realize that Selvam’s track is set in 2009 while that of Maharaja is set in the present-day! Soon, many things unravel leading to an intense and dramatic climax. How things get clear in the second half and how it’s completely unpredictable made the experience a paisa-vasool one.
This trick of having two parallel tracks in different timelines, without informing the viewers about it, was also done in A Gentleman, co-starring Jacqueline Fernandez. It starts showing Gaurav Kapoor (Sidharth Malhotra) working as a software engineer in Miami, USA. He’s innocent and away from violence. A parallel track shows Gaurav’s lookalike Rishi who’s a spy and is the opposite of the former – action-oriented and a risk-taker.
Director Raj and DK show their brilliance during the intermission point when it comes to light that Gaurav and Rishi are one and the same! Rishi’s track is set 5 years before and he gives up the spy life to become ‘a gentleman’. Before this revelation, the director duo attempts to trick viewers into believing that Gaurav and Rishi are going to come face-to-face. When it doesn’t happen, one gets intrigued before they drop the bomb.
It’s unfortunate that such a unique film with a script that not many can do justice to didn’t work at the box office. It came two years before the much-loved The Family Man’s release on Amazon Prime Video. It was the Manoj Bajpayee-fronted series that made Raj and DK a force to reckon with. Sidharth Malhotra, at present, is also in a much better space after the super-success of his OTT film, Shershaah(2021). Keeping these factors in mind, it won’t be wrong to say that perhaps, in today’s times, A Gentleman would have gotten a better reception.
Also Read: Vijay Sethupathi on Maharaja, “When I heard the story, I was shaken”
More Pages: A Gentleman Box Office Collection , A Gentleman Movie Review
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