Its reputation has far preceded “Marco” and ensured full box office in its country of origin last year: Haneef Adeni's revenge thriller is considered the most brutal Indian film of all time – and right at the beginning, a plaque makes it unmistakably clear that the film contains explicit violence against women, children and pregnant women, which could be disturbing or distressing for some viewers. That's why you should decide for yourself whether you really want to watch the film or whether you'd rather leave the theater in time.
The warning is certainly appropriate, because “Marco” is actually not without its effects: acid baths, chainsaws, shotguns, swords and knives are used, a dog's mouth is opened and a pregnant woman's fetus is ripped out, a child is hanged and another has his face smashed in with a huge gas bottle in a show-happy scene. The 142-minute Metzel epic delivers on all levels, but thanks to the complete over-staging, which blows up its title character into an almost mythical uber-uber-uber-macho and otherwise focuses primarily on constantly delivering “cool” images that are almost constantly smeared with “cool” pop/house tracks, it just seems cynical and dull.
Marco (Unni Mukundan) slaughters his opponents mercilessly.
Blind Victor (Ishan Shoukath) witnesses his friend Wasim (Bashid Basheer) being murdered. Although Victor is blind, he has an excellent sense of smell and touch and is therefore able to identify the murderer, who is in cahoots with Taariq (Arjun Nandhakumar), Wasim's brother. Russell (Abhimanyu Shammy Thilakan), the killer, kidnaps Victor and kills him too. But Victor is the brother of George D'Peter (Siddique), the head of the Adattu family, a well-known crime clan. And he is not only deeply affected by the loss, but also has an adopted brother, the title character Marco (Unni Mukundan), who returns to India after the news of Victor's death and vows to send absolutely everyone involved in the crime to the afterlife.
Meanwhile, Tony Isaac (Jagadish), head of a gold smuggling syndicate and father of Russell, arranges a dubious deal with D'Peter, but he falls victim to Isaac's henchman Devaraj (Anson Paul). He survives the attack, but Marco is now even angrier and launches a bloody counterattack when he and his right-hand man Anwar (Shaji Shahid) are kidnapped by Russell and his henchmen. But he soon learns that Victor's wife Isha (Durva Thaker) is pregnant and has been kidnapped by Tony. In return for her release, he demands that the entire Adattus gold business be signed over to him, whereupon Marco kidnaps Devaraj, tortures him and forces him out of him so that Isha is held captive in Tony's inn. Marco then storms out and slaughters Tony's henchmen, but then realizes that he has walked into a trap – Isha is somewhere else. Then – oh, no one really cares anyway…
Violence is all that matters
… because ultimately it's all about one thing: violence, violence and more violence. The whole laboriously constructed plot construct, the desperate attempt to blow up a simple revenge story into an epic, collapses more and more quickly after the first hour, in which testosterone monsters mainly press sayings like “Only in war lies true freedom. The freedom to kill”, spin intrigues or argue.
But even if the action and violence frequency is increased, it doesn't really get any better – because the title character alone is problematic. There were already plenty of really cool macho dudes in action cinema in the 1980s. But the charisma-free Marco is not only so cool that even the ultra-cruel slaughter of his family doesn't bother him much, he is a kind of always perfectly coiffed Power Ranger in a tailor-made suit who, even with his hands tied behind his back and only a knife held in his mouth, fights easily and smoothly through hordes of opponents and whose kicks send the bad guys sailing around for meters.
What Marco lacks in charisma, he makes up for in extra-cool macho poses.
The cartoonishness of the character clashes completely with the otherwise rather grounded tone of voice, and both stand in contrast to the last third, which is completely out of control and in which children, women and pregnant women are attacked. What makes these scenes particularly unsavory isn't even their drastic nature, but rather the fact that the characters don't play a major role – you don't even learn their names. Marco has no moments with them, they are purely disposable characters to satisfy the desire for cruel spectacles in an extremely cynical way. The only reason the little boy is killed so explicitly is because they want to show how a little boy is killed explicitly.
Conclusion: The most brutal film in India is really just that: the most brutal film in India. There is plenty of violence, but almost nothing else. But even if you enjoy excessive, taboo-breaking scenes of violence, you won't really get your money's worth here, because the weak production, which simply pushes all the buttons for 142 minutes, becomes annoying after a short time.