May 16, 2026 9:01pm IST
‘Karuppu’ Review: Justice served for Suriya fans, but slightly underwhelmingly so
You’ve got to ask how bad things have gotten if a god/guardian deity has to descend to earth to mete out justice after it has been repeatedly delayed and then denied. That question gets answered, when Karuppu (intermittently called ‘the lord of the hunt’ and the ‘god of justice’ in the film) is compelled to pass judgment after a devotee’s plea.
The RJ Balaji-helmed “Karuppu” invokes the deity as early as the opening credits, who appears in a vision to Indrans’s character. He’s left his hometown in Kerala to seek treatment for his daughter Binu (Anagha Maaya Ravi) in Chennai, but is mugged when he alights at an earlier train station.
He goes to the cops to file a First Information Report (FIR) and spends an inordinate amount of time trying to convince them to acknowledge and then lodge his complaint. While the thieves are found almost immediately, the long battle to get his valuables back, has just begun.
He is advised to lawyer up to ensure a quick resolution. The person he is advised to reach out to, is Baby Kannan (RJ Balaji), an unscrupulous advocate who would rather bleed all his clients dry with a straight face.
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For a better part of the first half thereon, you see how bad things get at the Seven Wells District court (27,000 pending cases at last count) before Binu’s father’s impassioned plea reaches Karuppuswamy’s ears and he decides to take down the power-drunk Baby Kannan. Ever the dealmaker, BK convinces the deity to attempt to get justice for Indrans’s character as a human and not as a god.
Karuppu takes human form as Saravanan (a nod to Suriya’s real name) and quickly discovers, courtesy a crash course in human behavior by Trisha Krishnan’s Preethi that everything he hopes to achieve is easier said than done. Slowly but surely, a reckoning follows, but not before a death comes to pass. That speeds up things from thereon.
Across its two-and-a-half-hour runtime, this feels less like a Suriya “comeback vehicle” as advertised and more like a “star-turn” role for director RJ Balaji, who doubles up as the chief antagonist Baby Kannan. BK just doesn’t know when to call it quits. From the time he saunters into the frame for his introduction to the last frame he’s in, it’s all about him and his viles. Even the devil would do well to take notes.
That isn’t to say that Suriya as Karuppu/Saravanan doesn’t own every scene he’s in. The loudest cheers and whistles came for the star at the screen this writer was in, as would surely be the case at every screen where this film plays. But make no mistake about it, ‘God Mode’ or not, Suriya gets lesser screen time than the film’s director.
Trisha as Preethi is pretty underwhelming. She is popular but appears shocked about everything happening around her despite her character being deeply aware of what’s happening around her. She flat-out fangirls once she gets a front-row glimpse of Karuppu’s powers. Makes you wonder if she has any agency over what’s happening or just was content playing a footnote in somebody else’s story.
While Indrans’s restrained performance as Binu’s vulnerable and deeply sensitive father comes off as rather simplistic, it paints an accurate, grim picture of what a generic justice-seeker has to go through.
The film abounds in references to the stars’ earlier films or appearances and while it draws laughs early on; after a while, it gets grating. Sai Abhyankkar’s score for the film, though, is a lifesaver. Every song is a treat to experience.
Despite Karuppu’s flaming horse and chainmail-wielding entries being reminiscent of a mix of Ghost Rider and Doctor Strange, the desification is effective and great to look at.
This massy outing might well be a treat for Suriya’s fans, but even they will feel a tad underwhelmed, “God Mode” notwithstanding.
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