Psycho (2020)

Directed by Mysskin Psycho (2020) was to be a gripping thriller for the new year. Instead, it was as an average serial-killer story managing to terrify us and keep us engaged. Actor Udhayanidhi Stalin, having got a limited scope to be a ‘hero’ in the film has given his best.

The film is about a mystery psycho (Rajkumar Pitchumani), who is kidnapping several young ladies and displaying their headless body in public places, and has the city of Coimbatore terrorised for over a year. CB-CID has absolutely no lead and is clueless. One day, Dahini (Aditi Rao Hydari) a successful RJ is kidnapped by the killer. This gets the hero Gautam (Udhayanidhi Stalin) to go after finding the murderer and saving Dahini. One twist is that Gautam is visually blind.

Director Mysskin is known for his high-energy screenplay, this one too doesn’t us on that front. Unfortunately, the story is full of logic gaps. Other than to get our sympathy, and, a senseless driving scene in the climax I see the “blindness” of Gautam not being used effectively. None of the characters, including the villain, were defined properly to leave an impact on us.

Most of the expected clichés for a thriller movie are present:

• A former inspector “Kamala” (Nithya Menen) who was working on this case earlier and now out of service is helping Gautam;
• Out of all the ladies kidnapped by the psycho only our heroine is kept alive beyond the evening;
• The trained crime police are shown to be a total novice, while the hero by talking to kids and by his smell gets a breakthrough, and, please don’t question why police dogs don’t get it;
• Hero’s front-cum-helper getting captured and killed.

Though the effect of Stockholm syndrome is well-known, the climax where the heroine feels for the killer was unacceptable to me. Lastly, I couldn’t help but get reminded of the other Tamil films with similar serial-killer plots – Ratsasan (2018), Imaikkaa Nodigal (2018), Vellai Pookal (2019) and the classic Vettaiyadu Vilayadu (2006).

சைக்கோ (2020)