Hitler Review: A question that both Vijay Antony and director Dana faced multiple times during the film’s promotion is why they named it “Hitler.” They explained that the film features a protagonist who acts as a Hitler to a villain who is a fascist. However, even after the film’s release, this question remains unanswered, with the title offering little justification beyond shock value. Director Dana, known for Vaanam Kottatum, presents a stale plot in Hitler, which was delayed for over a year and would still feel dated even if released a decade ago.
The film opens with a prologue of a group of labourers on a hillside village trying to cross a flooding river. It’s their only way back, and they have to risk it because their hungry children are on the other side, waiting to be fed. We also have a pregnant woman in the group. You see it coming – the next scene. They all get washed away in the flood. The film then moves on to the ruling political party’s office where the reigning CM warns Rathanavelu, a corrupt minister, that if he loses the upcoming election, his career will end.
The desperate minister starts distributing money to people to gain votes, and a gang starts stealing all that black money and kills his henchmen. Meanwhile, we are introduced to Selva (Vijay Antony), who arrives in Chennai in search of a job. If you have been following Tamil cinema for a while now, you would know, by now, where the film is headed. It doesn’t take much to figure out who is robbing the villain and why.
What’s shocking about Hitler is that it relies heavily on this ‘twist’. So much so that there is an entire sequence that tries to break it down and explain the ‘how’ of it all as if the twist is too complex for the audience to understand. The confidence in the supposed suspense of the film is the biggest suspense itself. You will never find out why anybody thought this could work.
This vigilante plot is from director Shankar’s debut film Gentleman (1993). The police officer in the film was played by Charanraj, who is the antagonist here. All of this could be the filmmaker’s idea of celebrating 30 years of Gentleman. Nothing explains the eerie similarity between these two films in terms of the plot. However, when it comes to execution, the three-decade-old Gentleman seems fresher than Hitler.
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