‘Boat’ movie review: Yogi Babu cannot save this tedious, talkative survival drama

A still from the ‘Boat’
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

The inspirations behind Boat, the latest Tamil period survival drama, are listed as Ernest Hemingway’s 1952 novella, The Old Man and the Sea, a story about an elderly fisherman’s biblical battle in the high seas, and The Twelve Angry Men, the 1957 legal drama in which 12 jurors in a confined space discuss a sensitive case while also reflecting on their own moralities.

This is enough to tell you the kind of film writer-director-producer Chimduven has envisioned — a two-hour talkathon on the Bay of Bengal that touches upon social concerns of the past and traces their relevance in current times. To do so, the filmmaker introduces ten characters, carefully picked to represent their social identities, and puts them as a heterogeneous group of survivors, who are forced to dissect their own lives, their place in the social hierarchy, and the moral codes with which they are conditioned to operate.

Through a haphazardly written opening sequence at a beach in Madras in 1943, we follow how these characters, in a last-ditch effort to escape from Japanese bombers, get on a fishing boat and venture into the ocean. This boat becomes Chimbudevan’s microcosm of the larger society. The boat’s owner, fisherman Kumaran (Yogi Babu), and his elderly grandmother, Muthumari (Kullapuli Leela), take in Lal (Chaams), a Rajasthani; Narayanan (Chinni Jeyandh), a Brahmin gomastha, and his daughter Lakshmi (Gouri Kishan), a carnatic singer; and Vijaya (Madhumitha), a pregnant Telugu woman, and her son, Mahesh (Akshath). Two mysterious men, Raja Muhammed (Sha Ra) and Muthaiya (MS Bhasker), also find their way into the boat, and so does Pechiamma, a pregnant rat — because, in the deep seas, all lives matter the same…or do they?

The identity of the final member is no surprise given the pre-Independence setting: we have Irwin Domas (Jesse Fox-Allen), a British Navy man who takes control of the boat because, well, he is ‘above’ all. Trouble begins just as they cross 12 nautical miles and onto the international seas when their boat inadvertently gets damaged. To return to the coast, three occupants must be deboarded from the vessel, an existential quandary that renders the sail motionless on the harsh ocean.

To understand Chimbudevan’s motives with such a storyline, it’s important not to dissect the historical accuracy of what these characters talk about, and how. The same is suggested in a scene in which Lal, performing a puppet show on British history to keep the exhausted survivors entertained, shuns Muthaiya when the latter points out an inaccuracy.

Nevertheless, there’s more than one issue with Boat to keep you from getting fully immersed in its world. You struggle to suspend your disbelief when Chimbudevan, rather than playing it subtly, forces commentaries into the dialogue on the current state of affairs. The cinematography attempts to ensure the audience doesn’t tire from the confined setting: the lighting in the night is achieved using kerosene lamps, for instance, and there are shots of the boat from underwater and a drone. However, these techniques, interesting as they are, do little to conceal the thinness of the plot.

A still from the ‘Boat’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

To add some tension to the weak narrative, we get a silly turn of events, in which it is revealed that a wanted terrorist is among the group; how this investigation goes about makes for an even more testing experience. There’s also a great white shark that lurks around and menaces the boat, but that only exposes the film as a shallow survival thriller. The film hardly gives space to explore the physical, mental and psychological effects of underdoing such an experience; even the lack of food, water or sanitation facilities is dealt with in a cursory fashion.

In the sea of issues, a few admirable ideas manage to register, like how all social constructs end up affecting only those in the lowest rungs of the hierarchy. The climax is a cop-out, by which time it’s already too long to deboard yourself from this rocky boat. Amid such chaotic writing, the film desperately forces in a surprise — a reveal that it is part of a cinematic universe — but even that fails to cheer you up.

Boat is excessively dialogue-heavy, made worse by the loud score drowning out any space for silence. Chances are you might remember the deafening experience and caricaturish characters more than all the well-intentioned ideas. Chimbudevan seems to have lost the plot by more than 12 nautical miles.

Boat is currently running in theatres