Heist genre is one of Tamil cinema’s most reliable formats, and also one of its most abused. Done well, it is all architecture, every scene a load-bearing wall, every character a moving part in a machine that the audience can feel clicking into place. Done badly, it is just people running. Kara leans closer to the former than the latter, which in itself is an achievement worth acknowledging. Vignesh Raja understands that a heist is only as interesting as what it costs the person pulling it off, and he spends most of his film making sure you feel that cost. Set in Ramanathapuram, 1991, we enter a world where petrol is scarce, the Gulf War is rattling economies far beyond the Middle East, and a man named Karasaami, played by Dhanush, is trying very hard to not become who he once was. That is where Kara drops you into, and for a good while, it is a world worth being in.…