Pathu Thala, the Tamil remake of Shivarajkumar’s hit Kannada film Mufti, despite lacking in novelty and being predictable is watchable. There are a few surprises like another spy in AGR’s fort, but otherwise the film pans out exactly the way you imagine it would. The supposedly emotional segment between AGR and his sister, who are not on talking terms with each other, is melodramatic and dated. Even the segments which depicts the love people have for AGR feels cheesy in an otherwise cold and violent film. Yet, these are not the biggest problems of Pathu Thala.The core problem with Pathu Thala is its silly logic and politics. AGR justifies violence and sand mining by saying that if he doesn’t do it then someone else would. It is high time this Robinhood vigilantism comes to an end in Tamil cinema. The idea of a vigilante hero, who solves the issues of the entire state and nation, is a superficial idea that has been overused by Tamil cinema for decades (especially by director Shankar). Such shallow politics is only a justification for exalting the hero and all the violence the film boasts of. On top of that, a new trend in Tamil cinema is to project the hero as a representative of a lower class or caste. In a scene in Pathu Thala, AGR warns his enemy Naanjilaar Gunasekaran (Gautham Vasudev Menon), a minister, to stop coming after him but Naanjilaar says he won’t stop because he is from the ruling class. AGR goes, “I am the clan which dethroned the ruling class.” Ever since the success of Pa Ranjith’s cinema and his politics, mainstream films have started to exploit the ideas, but it’s just on the surface. Such schematic usage of caste and class politics waters down the real issues.In Mufti’s Tamil remake Pathu Thala, Silambarasan TR, as crime lord AG Raavanan a.k.a AGR, gets a grand entrance halfway into the movie, but director Obeli N Krishna chooses to show him in a shot right at the beginning. Some mystique remains. And though the story still follows the undercover cop Sakthivel (Gautham Karthik), who infiltrates AGR’s gang, much of how he goes about it and the role he plays in the film, gets diluted. These are not really let-downs; in fact, a lot more and bigger ideas of the original material have been consciously played around with, some improving the story and some butchered mercilessly, making Pathu Thala a film on its own.