Vijay in a still from the film. (courtesy: YouTube)

As he seeks to expand his thriving universe, Lokesh Kanagaraj reteams with his Master star Vijay to offer a heightened reworking of David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence. Who would have thought that the Kaithi director would head in this direction after delivering a heavy-duty Vikram? But not to worry. Leo does nothing that would suggest the Tamil writer-director is moving away from his playbook. Cronenberg is just a pretext. Leo is all Kanagaraj.

The young director may not be at the peak of his prowess as an action filmmaker in <i>Leo</i> – the film flags appreciably in the second half and tends to make heavy weather of piecing together of the past and the present of the storyline – Lokesh Kanagaraj knows how to keep the narrative on the boil with a characteristic complement of action blocks and the occasional harking back to characters and situations from his earlier films. It is a universe that he is building, remember.

Leo kicks off with two attacks one after the other. In the opening sequence, vicious gangsters (led by a ruthless man played by Mysskin) raid a government official’s home and leave behind a horrific trail of blood. That burst of violence is followed by the terror that a spotted hyena sparks in the small Himachal Pradesh town in which the film is set.  The rampage by the ferocious beast paves the way for the lead actor’s rousing entry. Pure Lokesh Kanagaraj – he leaves no space for a breather between the two attacks and sets the tone for what is to come.

The hero, Parthiban (Vijay), who runs a coffee shop in Theog and appears to live uneventfully with his wife Sathya (Trisha) and two children, gives the gangsters their just desserts – bullets aimed at their foreheads – when they threaten his little daughter and an employee (in another high-octane action sequence). But he rescues, tames and befriends the animal.

That is the closest that Lokesh Kanagaraj comes to underscoring the kind of philosophy of violence and the psychology of a human cornered that marked A History of Violence. If the Canadian director’s probe into the mind of a sedate family man had startling layers, it was because neither the filmmaker nor the actor (Viggo Mortensen) were bigger than the project.

Leo, a Tamil film that has also been released as a Hindi dub, is a completely different kettle of fish. This is Lokesh Kanagaraj’s world and it is lorded over by an indisputable Vijay. The director stamps himself on the material in no uncertain terms and the star of the show is Thalapathy. So, what pans out on the screen is often allowed to be secondary to the creator and the megastar behind the genre exercise.

That is a double-edge sword. For fans, it is a double delight. For somebody looking for sparks under and above the surface of the enterprise, there is bound to be some disappointment. Leo lacks intrinsic emotional punch. The film attempts to offset that lacuna with flourishes aimed at sweeping the fans off their feet. There is plenty of that in here. Style takes precedence over substance. This critic’s guess is – there are no prizes, of course – that the converts will have no reason to complain.

The magnetism of Vijay – but we are not talking so much his histrionic skills here as his stupendous screen presence – is the propellant that drives Leo. The star, who isn’t getting any younger but isn’t slowing down either, plays the submissive middle-aged husband/loving father and the fearless animal rescuer – two distinct personalities – with phenomenal panache.

Admittedly, there are moments in Leo when one cannot but feel that the heavy lifting is beginning to take its toll on the actor because the screenplay is only sporadically effective. The villain in the film is a past that returns to haunt Parthiban in the form of Antony Das (Sanjay Dutt), who claims that the Theog resident is his son Leo Das, who was thought to have perished in a fire nearly 25 years ago.

Second half flashbacks, written rather perfunctorily, reveal where Antony and his brother Harold (Arjun Sarja) have come from – it is anything but a good place. Was Parthiban really a part of that shady world?

When Parthiban singlehandedly tranquilizes the hyena early in the film, an impressed asks a local police inspector who the brave man is. He has come from Chennai, the cop replies. A few scenes later, Parthiban himself reveals that he has been a Theog resident for 20 years.

You might wonder why the town knows so little about a man who has lived her for two decades. It is obviously because that is the way Parthiban wants it to be – he keeps as low a profile as possible, spending most of his time in his coffee shop when he is not doing his chores as a dutiful husband and a doting dad.

The claim that Antony Das makes – he reiterates it with increased vehemence to Parthiban’s wife as well – sets the cat among the pigeons. The still-sceptical Sathya and the cafe; owner’s befuddled best friend, forest range officer Joshy Andrews (Gautham Vasudev Menon), begin their own search for the truth.

Parthiban, on his part redoubles his efforts to protect his family with a bit of help from his son Siddhu (Mathew Thomas), a budding javelin thrower. As the threats mount, in walks a constable from an earlier Lokesh Kanagaraj film but, despite what he famously achieved in the past, the nondescript, avuncular lawman (George Maryan) does not inspire any confidence at all.

Leo  turns a bit heavy-handed from here on, plodding its way into a world of drugs, the occult and a whole retinue of goons gunning for Parthiban and the three people he holds dear. When he has his back to the wall, he knows no fear notwithstanding the song (I’m Scared…) over which the end credits run.

Leo  roar isn’t the sort that will ring in your ears – the film isn’t Lokesh Kanagaraj’s best – but this is a cinematic creature with firm legs. It is born to run.