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Why I Picked This Movie
The movie I'm reviewing today is Spyder (2017), directed by A.R. Murugadoss. I picked it for a reason. For the last few months I've been exploring my own mental health a lot, and I keep thinking about the mental health and wellbeing of the people around me. This movie fits right into that, because both of its main characters are, in their own ways, very far from mentally "normal".
A Small Detour (Still Related, I Promise)
Since I'm talking about other people's wellbeing, let me share something first.
Recently I was talking to a person with a disability. On purpose, I brought up faith, and from there we got to the afterlife. What I wanted to say came down to this: the disability you have here is not permanent. In the afterlife, you'll be running faster than the Flash. I was using death as a motivation to live: be patient with this disability for now, and keep your thoughts positive.
So for me, death and the afterlife can give someone hope. The villain of this movie uses death for the exact opposite.
The Story (No Spoilers)
Shiva works in a secret department of India's Intelligence Bureau. Almost nobody knows it exists. This department taps people's phone calls, and whenever a call sounds like a crime is about to happen, it gets investigated so the crime can be stopped before it happens.
Shiva doesn't stop there. He has his own software, he listens to calls on his own, and when he hears someone in danger, he goes himself to help. He doesn't tell his department, he gets hurt many times, and he still doesn't stop. He does it to help people, and because it makes him happy.
Then one night, one call goes wrong. Someone he could have saved isn't saved, and it breaks him. That call leads him to a killer nobody even has a name for, a man who has been killing for years without anyone noticing. From there it becomes a game of brains between the two of them.
That's all I'll tell you about the story.
The Villain: A Pure Sadist
The villain, Bhairav, played by S.J. Suryah, is a sadist. He gets pleasure from giving other people pain and death. It's disturbing, I won't lie. When someone dies, he doesn't care about the body. He enjoys the crying: the family, the mourning, the screams. For him, other people's pain is like food. He even has a name for the chaos he wants to create: "maut ka tandav" (a dance of death).
The movie also shows you where this comes from, and that backstory is one of the most disturbing parts of the film. I won't say more, but it explains how a child can grow up into a monster when pain and death become normal for him from day one.
S.J. Suryah plays him so well that you feel uncomfortable just watching him smile. What makes him scary is that he's not shouting or angry. He's calm, patient, and happy.
What is sadism? Sadism means getting pleasure from someone else's pain, suffering or humiliation. "Sadistic personality disorder" was once proposed as a diagnosis, but it was dropped, and it's not in today's official manuals. Psychologists now study sadism as one of the four "Dark Tetrad" traits, along with narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Milder "everyday sadism" exists too: people who enjoy seeing others humiliated, or who troll online just to hurt someone.
The Hero: Savior Syndrome
On the other side, Shiva, played by Mahesh Babu, has savior syndrome. He's obsessed with saving the world. He listens to calls way beyond his job timing and way beyond what he's allowed to do. Bro, get a life.
The movie shows this side of him very clearly. When that one call goes wrong, he blames himself completely: "I should have gone myself." He even quits his job and calls it his punishment. That's savior syndrome in one scene. You save a hundred people, but the one you couldn't save becomes your whole identity.
What brings him back is his father's advice: a killer like this has done it before and will do it again, so you can stop the next crimes, but not by punishing yourself. I really liked this part, because that's what healthy support sounds like.
The funny part is that at one time I was a victim of this myself, and maybe I still am. That "if not me, then who?" thought. I know it very well.
What is savior syndrome? Also called "white knight syndrome", this is a strong, constant need to rescue or fix other people, often at the cost of your own health and peace. It isn't an official diagnosis, but it's a real and common pattern. Common signs are feeling responsible for other people's problems, heavy guilt when you can't help, ignoring your own needs, and burning out. It's often linked with past trauma or with feeling worthy only when you're useful to someone. Helping people is good, but you can't pour from an empty cup.
Hero vs Villain: Two Sides of One Coin
This is what I found most interesting. Both characters are obsessed with other people's pain. One can't sleep until he stops it, and the other can't sleep until he causes it. One listens to calls to protect strangers, and the other watches strangers so he can hurt them. Put them in one movie and you get a cat-and-mouse game where both of them know the other is coming.
Brain Over Fists
Mahesh Babu is one of the biggest names in Telugu cinema, and his fanbase is huge. His name alone is enough to run a movie. But here he's not the typical "one punch, ten goons fly" hero. Most of the time Shiva wins with his brain: phone networks, CCTV, social media, and even ordinary people around him, used in very clever ways. Some of his tricks made me smile because they're so simple and so smart. You'll know which ones when you watch.
There's also a light romantic track with Rakul Preet Singh as Charlie. It gives you a break from the heavy stuff. If you think about how Shiva gets to know her, though, it's a bit creepy, since the man listens to phone calls for a living. Privacy who?
Twists That Keep You Hooked
An interesting hero and an interesting villain. What more does a movie need?
But Spyder gives you more: twists, lots of them, and good ones. Just when you think you've understood the game, the movie changes the rules again. In a lot of thrillers the suspense drops somewhere in the middle, which is normal because keeping the thrill alive for almost two and a half hours is not easy. Spyder doesn't really let that happen. Or maybe my brain has become like a goldfish's and I just enjoyed everything. You decide.
The One Thing I Didn't Like
I've praised it so much, so let me complain a bit too.
I didn't like the big disaster scene near the end at all. The movie had a big budget and a strong cast, yet the CGI and effects in this scene were really poor. It could easily have been done better, or the scene could simply have been changed to something else. The movie was so awesome and serious until then, and that scene took me right out of it.
My Rating: 85/100
I'm giving Spyder 85/100. Most of the marks I cut are for that one CGI scene near the end. Without it, this movie would have been 100/100 for me, because I really love movies like this.
This time I tried to give almost zero spoilers, so you can go in fresh and enjoy the twists yourself. Let me know how you like this style of review.
If you know any movies that are disturbing in nature, mysterious and thrilling like this one, tell me in the comments. I'd love to watch them.
Rating: 85/100
