“Ace” Film Review

Vijay Sethupathi’s last two releases were Maharaja and Viduthalai Part 2 – both landmark films that extended his already impressing acting range. The fact that these two films were followed by a film like Ace ­–his latest release – is a major blight on the filmography of this truly talented actor.

Ace is produced, written and directed by Arumuga Kumar and sees Vijay Sethupathi in the lead role opposite Kannada actress Rukmini Vasanth in her Tamil debut. The film also stars Divya Pillai in her third Tamil film after Kaathuvaakule Rendu Kaadhal and Raayan. Bablu Prithviraj, best known for portraying the young MGR in Naallai Namadhe and Sivaji Ganesan’s younger brother in Naan Vazhavaippen, plays an important role as does Yogi Babu who almost matches Vijay Sethupathi’s screen time. B.S. Avinash plays the film’s antagonist and there is a special guest appearance by Ramesh Thilak.

Ace is filmed almost entirely on location in Malaysia and tells the story of “Bolt” Kannan (Vijay Sethupathi) who meets the wily Arivu (Yogi Babu) who takes him as his roommate. When Kannan meets Rukku (Rukmini Vasanth), he is enamoured by her beauty, but their relationship gets off to a rocky start. Kannan’s determination to obtain money leads him to Dharma (B.S. Avinash) who runs an illegal gambling den. What starts off as a simple game turns into one where Kannan needs to use all his wits to stay one or two steps ahead of Dharma’s men. What happens next forms the rest of the story in Ace.

When starting to watch this film, you will have to check in or lock away that part of your brain that uses logic or common sense. There is nothing even remotely logical about the plot and development, and even less logical development when one looks at the human relationships in this story.

The screenplay uncurls at a painstakingly slow pace and the lack of nativity throughout the film does not help the process.

Vijay Sethupathi looks ill at ease in many of the scenes – and who can blame him! He must have been wondering what would have possessed him to accept such a role. Rukmini Vasanth is far from convincing but this could well be a reflection of the script rather than her acting ability. Bablu Prithviraj makes a solid contribution while Yogi Babu provides a few laughs. Divya Pillai is impressive, managing to shine despite the flatness of the script.

Cinematographer Karan B Rawat makes no positive contribution to the film with a visual display that experiments only with the palette and not with angles, lighting or framing.

The soundtrack has music by Justin Prabhakaran and Sam C.S. and there are two memorable songs. Background music by Sam C.S. shows only a minimal effort.

The idea behind Ace might have started off well, but its haphazard development, crawling screenplay and a total lack of logic in the story turns this film into an uncomfortable ordeal.

Ace scores 4 points out of 10.