Raghava Lawrence cracked a great template for making an easy, mindless entertainer by blending horror and comedy with a revenge drama. The story goes something like this: a scared hero meets a gory ghost. The gory ghost possesses the scared hero for a secret mission. The hero rebels. Then the ghost tells a sad backstory. The sympathetic hero relents. The ghost gets its revenge. Now, replace the ghost with a transplanted hand, and that is pretty much what I’m Game is.
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Dulquer Salmaan plays Dan John, a rich businessman with a gambling problem. He is a spoilt brat who wants to make a point to his father, mother and the world in general, but only ends up losing money in cricket league betting. While escaping gangster moneylenders, he meets with an accident, loses his hand and gets it transplanted from an anonymous donor. Once his transplanted hand starts to function, it starts operating on its own.
Maaveran already seen
After the initial rebellion, he realises the hand is actually a superpower and this is when I’m Game starts to look a lot like Sivakarthikeyan’s 2023 Tamil film, Maaveeran. Mysskin, a part of the Maaveeran cast, plays the villain David here, adding to the sense of déjà vu.
However, I’m Game isn’t as ambitious as Maaveeran in either idea or execution. Maaveeran presents an original thought about what happens when the inner conscience of a coward takes control of him despite his best efforts. The ambiguous nature of the superhero element in Maaveeran elevates the film to greater cinematic heights, well beyond the defines of a superhero movie. I’m Gameon the other hand, restricts a good idea and drowns it in a generic revenge-action-drama screenplay, robbing the idea of all its potential.
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Even as an idea, I’m Game isn’t a novel one. It is reminiscent of the Japanese anime Parasytein which an alien parasite takes control of a boy’s hand and gives him superhuman abilities. In I’m Gamethe setup gets your attention. But the moment the mystery starts unravelling, we find ourselves watching a typical ‘masala’ movie with an archetypal villain, a sad backstory and the eventual revenge. The idea deserved much more than a redundant story about a betrayed sportsman.
Dulquer’s effort saves film partially
Dulquer Salmaan makes the film bearable with his convincing performance of the slow transformation of a spoilt brat into a decent man. But the predictability of the plot and its perfunctory treatment make the film forgettable. He also makes the “solo” fight sequences interesting, though there are too many of them to hold the audience’s attention. Mysskin seems to be banking on his eccentricity again here. However, it doesn’t work, because the magic of his performance usually lies in his nonchalance. Ironically, here Mysskin tries to act out his candid eccentricity, defeating the purpose.
I’m Game has the structure of an interesting superhero premise, but it settles for the safest possible narrative. It borrows its central concept from Parasyte and its emotional arc from Maaveeranyet has neither the anime’s inventiveness nor the Sivakarthikeyan film’s ambiguity and depth. What’s left is a competent but predictable revenge drama, held together mainly by Dulquer Salmaan’s committed performance — enough to make the film watchable, but not enough to make it memorable.