Marijuana (2020)

"Marijuana" (2020), directed by MD Anand, is a Tamil crime thriller about a riveting murder mystery caught up in the seedy underworld of drug addiction. The movie features Rishi Rithvik as Guru, a hardworking and intelligent police officer, along with Asha Parthalom and Srinivasan in supporting roles. The story begins with the horrifying murder of a theatre staff member and then the gruesome slaying of a minister's son. Left to follow up on these seemingly disconnected crimes, Guru starts feeling a pattern. His dive into the victims' histories reveals one scary thread — all of them were connected to either using or distributing marijuana in some way. As more bodies keep turning up, the urgency grows, and Guru has to work desperately to stop more killings. Guru's research takes him down a path of shattered lives addicts, victims of the drug trade, and individuals ruined by a system that benefits from narcotics. In the process, he learns the truth about the killer: a young man whose sister had died from a drug overdose, setting off a retaliatory killing spree against those who were responsible for selling or pushing marijuana in the area. As the murderer starts to rationalize his deeds as a moral vengeance, Guru finds himself with an ethical dilemma: whether to sympathize with the suffering behind the crimes or follow the law. The climax peaks at a dramatic confrontation where justice, vengeance, and redemption collide. Guru finally apprehends the murderer but not without questioning the larger social abandonment that led to such tragedy. "Marijuana," rooted in a crime thriller structure, tries to tackle the social evil of drug abuse with a personal, vengeance-centered story. Though it has a promising premise, the movie stumbles in implementation because of weak character development and uneven pace. Yet, it deserves praise for trying to address a contemporary issue and injecting some novelty into the standard whodunit template.