Do we need Villains? | Police Edition | Action Hero Biju | Theeran Adhigaram Ondru | Video Essay Script

Hi, my name is Kishor and this is MOVING IMAGES. Police films are a genre of its own in Indian cinema and is a must-have role for every major leading actor. And why wouldn’t it be? A police role offers every lead a chance to display their best qualities such as heroism, their fit bodies, and a sense of duty towards the common man. A cop is the closest we get to see a real-life hero in our day to day lives thereby making it a perfect role for our film heroes to cement their image in our minds. However, in recent years police films have almost become formulaic. You know what I mean. We see the same old sincere cop harassed by a corrupt politician, businessman, or gangster, sometimes all three, only for the hero to finish them off after a couple of action blocks and ear-piercing punch dialogues. Nowadays cop films have become shells of their former selves and are being mocked at. So, what could be done to fix it? As always it starts with the villain. I can go on and on about how a good villain should be interesting and powerful enough to pose as a serious challenge or obstacle for our hero to overcome. But today, we are not going to see how to write a great villain, but instead ask the question do we even need a villain, especially in a police film?

Surprisingly, one film did ask this question and tried to do something different with the genre. I’m talking about the 2016 Malayalam film Action Hero Biju. What Biju does differently from other cop films is that there is no one big villain. There isn’t even one long narrative with heavy obstacles posing as the villain. Instead, we get a series of cases a typical police officer handles. Some of these cases are small, and some even funny, but there are places where the stakes are indeed high and proves to be a challenge for our hero Biju to overcome. However, the high-stake cases do not overpower the smaller moments narratively. This is seen from the opening of the film, where Biju is mortally wounded, and film goes to a flashback. This is very reminiscent to Kaakha Kaakha, where the story unfolds in the flashback pitting the hero against the villain and showing how he ends up getting wounded. However, in Action Hero, this is not the case. The flashback here is about the smaller episodes and the event that led to Biju getting stabbed is only shown towards the end of the film only to be resolved quickly. No heroic showdown between the hero and the villain.

To understand better the logic behind having no villain in Action Hero Biju, we can look at something called the Peace Theory. Johan Galtung, the father of peace studies often refers to the distinction between ‘negative peace’ and ‘positive peace’. Negative peace refers to the absence of violence. When, for example, a war ends, or a big villain oppressing the people is vanquished, a negative peace will ensue. Positive peace is filled with positive content such as restoration of relationships, the constructive resolution of conflict, things that serve the needs of the vulnerable people in their everyday lives, the kind of peace Biju tries to establish. Sure, stopping a big bad is good for the society, but it is a short-term fix. What Biju is trying to establish is a long-term protection where he is preventing the smaller issues from compounding into a bigger threat. This is not far from what actual police do in real life, but nobody wants to see an Anbu Selvan or Raghavan deal with the case of a stolen walkie-talkie. There is no glamour or heroism in the grunt work that police do in reality. Even in real-life, a cop is awarded for cracking a big case or for saving people from peril, but no one talks about the traffic police who makes sure there are no traffic mishaps on your everyday commute. So, it is easy to see why cinema would gravitate towards the more appealing and sometimes unrealistic part of police work for its stories. Films rarely show us anything except the exciting parts, this is why the 2007 comedy cop film Hot Fuzz was appreciated by actual cops not for its action or heroism but rather its realistic portrayal of the amount of paperwork a cop has to do following each case.

Now, in Tamizh we have a contender too that tried to do something different with the police genre, Theeran: Adhigaaram Ondru. Remember what I said about police films in the beginning (A police role offers every lead to display their best qualities such as heroism, their fit bodies, and a sense of duty towards the common man). Most films ignore the last part, the duty towards the common man which is part of establishing positive peace. Theeran takes this approach seriously and tries to solve a case where a group murders and steals from the public. He tries to get the attention of his superiors to give him the resources to catch these thieves but is met with apathy since the people affected are commoners and are of no significant importance to the higher officials. They see the thieves as pests and below their pay grade to worry about. This even leads to a denial about the actual impact of the issue. It is only when a politician is killed, the department shows interest and grants Theeran the resources he needed to end the murders. Theeran takes a different approach to the positive peace, where it is still ending the violence, which could be the same as negative peace. However, the difference is that while a big villain might threaten an entire society, the thieves here terrorize the rural areas and the little people governments usually do not care about. Hence, by making sure that these people live without fear of getting brutally murdered and championing their safety, Theeran is trying to establish a positive peace. However, towards the climax of the film, Theeran’s motivation begins to turn from an entirely selfless and duty-bound act, to now also include a personal revenge for his wife and makes the gang leader into the big villain. This is one thing I felt was completely unnecessary. The film was based on real-life incidents and yet added the whole romantic plotline and the revenge aspect for cinematic effect. This does not completely sully Theeran’s motivation but rather tried to depict the personal struggles of Policemen and how their lives are affected too. The treatment of the family aspect although leaves something more to be desired.

Biju and Theeran are indeed bold attempts in the police genre and good companion pieces to show how you can color outside the lines in this genre and do away with the villain. The films are interesting to me in their dichotomy; while one is a realistic portrayal of a fictional cop, the other is fictional portrayal of a real cop. These films managed to subvert the happily ever after aspect of most films after the villain is defeated, and instead shows interesting ways to keep a story engaging by focusing on the little things. I am stoked to see where this genre will go from here if we decide to explore more the low stakes aspects of a cop’s life. Will the filmmakers manage to retain the interest of the audience with newer stories, and still manage to make these real-life heroes shine and inspire a whole new generation? I sure hope so. Until next time, this is Kishor signing off saying…