‘Mark Antony’ Review: SJ Suryah is the heart and soul of this mindless time-travel film

Mark Antony is a name that every Tamil film fan can remember in the blink of an eye. Thanks to Raghuvaran’s iconic performance in Rajinikanth’s ‘Baassha’, he makes Mark Antony one of the deadliest villains. Cut to 2023, we have Vishal and director Adhik Ravichandran trying to cash in on the fame that the character Mark Antony has created over the years. Like 'Baashha', 'Mark Antony' will be remembered for a superlative performance from SJ Suryah.

Antony (Vishal) and Jackie Pandian (SJ Suryah) are best friends and gangsters in Chennai. Together, they control Chennai through their rowdyism. However, their enemy Ekambaram (Sunil) decides to take revenge against Antony for killing his brother. He plots and kills Antony in a bar. This makes Jackie become the sole gangster and he brings up Antony’s son, Mark.

Meanwhile, Chiranjeevi (Selvaraghavan) is working on a time-travel machine, i.e., a phone in this case, which finds Antony. He decodes the time-travel phone to make changes to his past life, so he could bring back his mother and question his father. When Antony and Jackie get hold of this phone, they express their desire to change the past.

Adhik Ravichandran created a name for himself in the Tamil film industry. After scoring a hit with ‘Trisha Illana Nayanthara’, the director failed to achieve success of that magnitude. But, ‘Mark Antony’ could just bring him that success. The time-travel gangster film is a whacky and crazy ride. What works in ‘Mark Antony’ are SJ Suryah’s brilliant performance, GV Prakash’s music and the comedy bits.

The film also has its own share of flaws. So much so that it keeps reminding us not to expect logic in a film like this. The time-travel phone has limited functions and Chiranjeevi writes them down in a diary. But, the rules and functions are so convenient that they change according to the screenplay.

‘Mark Antony’ has a solid story in its score and Adhik has laced it with several theatrical moments at frequent intervals. Be it the interval sequence, Jackie’s interaction with his son or the climax, the film keeps you entertained with his quirky one-liners. The screenplay goes wild and it could have been a bit crisper towards the second half.

Here's the trailer:

While Vishal is the lead hero, it is SJ Suryah who steals the show by miles. He is credited as ‘Nadipu Arakan’ (acting beast) and he truly lives up to the name with the variations he has shown in the film. Though Vishal has tried his best, his performance is not as effective as Suryah’s. Sunil, in his role of Ekambaram, proved why he is one of the best performers in Telugu cinema.

That said, there are some problematic bits in ‘Mark Antony’. Be it the treatment of Ritu Varma’s character, the cliched way in which Silk Smitha’s character behaves or Y Gee Mahendran’s act, these stereotypes could have been avoided in this day and age.

‘Mark Antony’ works well because of its (un)intentional comedy. Sometimes, you laugh at the dialogue and sometimes you laugh at the film itself. Either way, you laugh while watching the film and that’s probably the film’s success.

Apart from SJ Suryah, it is GV Prakash’s music that takes the cake. The cinematography by Abinandhan Ramanujam needs special mention as the frames are carefully crafted and take us back to the 70s and 80s.

That said, ‘Mark Antony’ is a valiant effort and, with certain shortcomings, it still manages to engage the audience and leave them in splits.

2.5 out of 5 stars for ‘Mark Antony’.