Aravind (played earnestly by Ashok Selvan), the protagonist of Kootathil Oruthan, isn’t someone you’d call ‘hero’ material. When his sister’s gold chain is stolen on a crowded bus, he looks around hoping to find someone else (perhaps the typical Tamil film hero) to chase the thief.
But he's no ‘zero’ either. He’s not one to threaten his ladylove into submission over weeks of stalking and a bottle of acid. Aravind falls somewhere in the middle... he’s neither Baasha nor Manickam.
How easy is it to hold a two-our film based on someone so... uninteresting? That’s the challenge director Gnanavel takes up. Does he succeed? It’s a yes and a no.
He succeeds in the way he portrays a strong(er) female character. In the aforementioned chain-snatching scenes, it’s Janani (Priya Anand) who brings back the stolen chain, getting her own ‘hero’ introduction scene. It’s also heartening that Aravind's love-at-first sight moment isn’t driven entirely by her beauty; she’s the first person to compliment him and that's his first ever recognition. It’s then he realises that he needn’t do anything extraordinary to feel special.
On the contrary, Kootathil Oruthan almost reinforces the idea that you need to be special to be lucky in love. When Aravind pours his heart out to Janani, she insists he make a name for himself first: even to become her friend. The film’s conclusion too proves that it takes something extraordinary for such a person to find love. It also doesn’t help that Arvind falls right in the middle of a confusing subplot involving a gangster, and his rivalry with a police officer.
Yet what holds the film together is the sincerity with which the leads have acted, aided almost only by the music. It feels like a story we’ve seen so often in films like VIP, Ethir Neechal, Kaaki Sattai and more. But instead of celebrating the ordinary, Kootathil Oruthan ends up being yet another zero-to-hero story, hardly engaging with the wonderful ‘in-between’ it promised to be. The film’s title, unfortunately, defines it as well. It’s just one among the crowd.