The director’s signature long, quiet speeches return. There is a scene in the second half where Sathya Moorthy confronts a young cybercriminal not with a fist, but with a devastating monologue about the weight of a father’s name and the hollowness of anonymous cruelty. For a few minutes, the film soars on pure writing.

The greatest strength of Autograph or Thavamai Thavamirundhu was that the message was embedded in the drama. You cried for the characters first, and then understood the moral. In Bakasuran , the reverse happens. The second half devolves into an extended lecture. Characters stop behaving like real people and start behaving like audience surrogates waiting for the next sermon. The subtlety that defined Cheran’s earlier work is largely absent here.

However, his methodology—the slow-burn, didactic, melodramatic style—feels like it belongs to 2005. Modern audiences, even those who love “content-driven cinema,” have been trained by international OTT series and films like Jai Bhim or Soorarai Pottru to expect realism wrapped in tight storytelling, not monologues.

After a significant hiatus from directing (his last directorial was Pokkisham in 2009, followed by a long gap as an actor in other projects), Cheran returned to the director’s chair with (2019) and more recently the highly discussed "Bakasuran" (2023). But the question on every discerning film lover’s mind is: Has Cheran’s recent movie recaptured the nuanced magic of his golden era, or has it become a victim of the very loud, message-driven cinema he once subtly mastered?

Cheran has always been ahead of his time. Bakasuran landed in 2023, right as India was waking up to the horrors of deepfake technology and digital arrests. The film’s first half, where anonymous callers harass women using morphed videos, is genuinely unsettling because it is not fiction—it is news. Cheran deserves credit for turning the camera on a modern demon that law enforcement is still struggling to cage.

Cheran’s recent movie proves that his heart is in the right place, but his craft hasn’t adapted to the rhythm of the 2020s. He is still making middle-class television plays for a multiplex, OTT-native audience. Bakasuran is not a great film, but it is an important one. It will make you angry at the state of digital safety. It will make you nod your head at several profound observations about modern parenting and online shame. But it will also make you check your watch during the long courtroom sequences and the repetitive moral sermons.

Cinema has evolved in the decade Cheran was away from directing. Bakasuran has a television-drama aesthetic—flat lighting, static shots, and a background score that tells you exactly when to feel sad or angry. For a film about the slick, fast-paced world of cybercrime, the visual language feels dated. Younger audiences, accustomed to the stylish thrillers of Lokesh Kanagaraj or Sudha Kongara, found the pacing sluggish.

A young co-writer to trim the preachiness, a sharp cinematographer to modernize the visuals, and perhaps a step back from the lead role to let a fresh face carry his words. Because the world needs Cheran’s voice more than ever. It just needs it to be heard, not just listened to. Have you seen Cheran’s recent film? Do you think his style of social drama still holds up, or has time passed him by? Share your thoughts below.