Watchman (film)

Watchman
Watchman
	Film poster
Directed by	A. L. Vijay
Written by	A. L. Vijay
Produced by	Arun Mozhi Manickam
Starring	G. V. Prakash Kumar; Samyuktha Hegde
Cinematography	Nirav Shah; Saravanan Ramasamy
Edited by	Anthony
Music by	G. V. Prakash Kumar
Production; company	Double Meaning Productions
Release date	12 April 2019;
Running time	95 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Watchman is a 2019 Indian Tamil crime thriller film written and directed by A. L. Vijay.^[1] The film stars G. V. Prakash Kumar in lead role in addition to composing the music for the film, reuniting with Vijay after the film Idhu Enna Maayam (2015).^[2] The film stars G. V. Prakash Kumar as the hero and Samyuktha Hegde as the female lead alongside Suman, and Yogi Babu in supporting roles.^[3] The film was released to average response. The satellite rights of the film were sold to Colors Tamil.^[4]

Plot

The story starts right from the word "Go!". Bala comes out of a police station and seems very nervous about something. As he is striding on his bike thinking about gathering money to pay back his loan, he stumbles upon a big villa. Once, he hears that everyone from that house is not in town that night, so he decides to rob the house. When he climbs the villa's compound wall and jumps on the other side, his fall is deep. The task and the wall seemed possible at first, but then, just as Bala, we fall into something deeper. Bala's multiple attempts to somehow break into the villa without causing a scene gets him face to face with Bruno, the dog. Finally, after failed attempts to escape Bruno, he gains courage and gets into the villa which leads him into even more darker paths. He realises that the villa is not empty. It is filled with mysteries. Terrorists who escaped from prison got into this villa to get revenge on the owner of it, who is an Ex-DIG. Bala too gets into this spiderweb revenge. With a lot of struggle of himself and the dog with which he came face to face with, Bala and the owner of the villa get rid of the terrorists, but unfortunately Bruno loses his life in the process. In recognition of Bala's help in getting rid of terrorists and saving his life, the Ex-DIG grants Bala his loan amount and a job as a guard, which Bala corrects as watchman.

Cast

G. V. Prakash Kumar as Bala
Samyuktha Hegde as Anitha
Suman as Ex-DIG Rasheed Khan IPS
Raj Arjun as Terrorist
Yogi Babu as Maari
Ramdoss as Bala's brother-in-law
Bruno as Bruno, the dog
Usha Elizabeth as Bala's mother
Winner Ramachandran as Bala's father
Stunt Silva as "Vatti" Kumar
Sayyeshaa Saigal as herself in the promotional song

Production

Watchman first look poster showing G.V. Prakash and a dog with him while the fence is locked with padlock.^[5]^[6]

Soundtrack

The film had no songs. The song "ToTo" was released as a promotional song.^[7]

No.	Title	Lyrics	Singer(s)	Length
1.	"Toto Toto"	Arunraja Kamaraj	Arunraja Kamaraj, Sanjana Kalmanje	3:19

Reception

Sify wrote "Despite the crisp runtime, top technicalities and sincere effort from the actors, Watchman fails to engage us and ends up as yet another wishy-washy film."^[4] Times of India wrote "The plot offers great scope for a gripping action thriller. But the screenplay seems rushed and ends up as a half-baked attempt."^[8] The Hindu wrote "Thankfully, the Vijay-directed Watchman works to an extent, and has potential at the box-office, despite being stripped of regular commercial ingredients."^[9] Film Companion South wrote "Only brief flashes in the second half make good on the premise, thanks to some inventive staging and the low-light cinematography by Nirav Shah and Saravanan Ramasamy...this broad Benji-style cuteness is completely at odds with the claustrophobic Panic Room-style thriller the director is going for".^[10]