A SOARING HEIST DRAMA

METIER. Many people go years without knowing what they are actually good at, while others understand it in an instant.

- AVINASH RAMACHANDRAN

The people who fall into the latter category have a thin rope to walk on. Should they stick to what they know? What if you are good at something that the world isn’t ready for? What is the yardstick to measure their success? It is beautiful how these questions can be asked of both the director, Vignesh Raja, and the protagonist of his film, Kara. The director and his writer Alfred Prakash, wastes no time in pulling us right into the world of Kara. We meet Karasaami (Dhanush), a professional thief, as he embarks on his ‘One Last Job.’ We know what it means when the protagonist says, ‘One Last Time.’, everything that can go wrong goes wrong, and Kara finds himself between a rock and a hardened cop, Bharathan (Suraj Venjaramoodu). But the writers have other plans in between.

It is these plans that blow hot and cold in Kara. There’s a layer involving Kara’s fractured relationship with his father, Thangasami (KS Ravikumar). There’s a layer involving Kara’s romantic and fruitful relationship with his wife, Selli (Mamitha Baiju). There’s a layer involving Kara’s familiar but frayed relationship with his uncle (Karunaas). Now, each of these equations could be a film in itself, but Vignesh and Alfred choose to focus on how every system in our society is built on oppression. Dhanush isn’t new to championing such causes, and in