The movie starts off with the kidnapping of four people in the medical industry, whose obsession for money had led to the death of a girl, with Maaran being blamed for it. Sathyaraj’s character doesn’t have very much to do, as he easily plays his role as Rathnavel, a police officer. Vadivelu offers some laughs here and there, and full marks to Atlee for using him not just as a comic relief but giving him a well defined role. SJ Surya yet again shows us how good of a villain he can be, and although his character Daniel Arockiaraj (with some sweet sideburns and his ominous smile) lacks the sadism of Sudalai from Spyder, he nevertheless puts up a cocky, confident and flamboyant performance, much befitting of his role. Kajal Aggarwal and Samantha are limited to a song and very few dialogues whereas Nithya Menen has a powerful and important role, and she delivers big time. Kudos to him for three very good performances. While his performance in each role is good, his role Vetrimaaran is the best as he has changed his appearance, mannerisms and dialogue delivery. Vijay dons three roles- Maaran- a too-good-to-be-true doctor, Vetri- a magician, and Vetrimaaran- a villager.
Recently there have been many movies exposing the medical industry, and Mersal is a masala-commercial take on it as it highlights the gruesome reality and fallacies of the people we blindly believe in. What do Baahubali and Mersal have in common? An actor playing roles of father-son, a grandiose budget, brilliant visuals, the co-writer (KV Vijayendra Prasad) and overall a good package. And although Mersal itself isn’t a terrific script or a revolutionary story, it manages to deliver a normal story nicely on the big screen. And that probably is the reason I was quite happy after watching the movie. So it’s fair to say I didn’t have many expectations from Mersal. His first directorial venture Raja Rani, wasn’t anything special whereas Theri was probably the billionth remake of Baashha. Before I start, I want to say that Atlee, in my opinion is a little overrated.