Tag Archives: Anirudh

Vedalam (2015)

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Vedalam

Vedalam opens with a woeful assassination attempt in Milan where a team of supposedly crack soldiers are trying to rid the world of top Tamil crime boss Ratna Bhai (Rahul Dev) and end up failing miserably. It’s not a good start, and what makes it so terrible is a mixture of the ridiculousness of the scenario, bad dubbing, bad acting and a nonsensical dénouement. Thankfully though, with the exception of a few comedy scenes, the rest of Vedalam is miles better than the opening few minutes would suggest and Ajith scores another hit – mainly due to the force of his personality and considerable charisma on-screen. Siva adds special effects, a good story and plenty of action to make Vedalam an entertaining watch despite the dodgy start.

As an antidote to the opening scene, the film immediately moves to Kolkata and Rajendran as local gangster Kolkata Kaali. Rajendran is one of my favourite actors and I love that he’s moving more into comedy alongside his usual gangster roles. He is very funny here as he menaces and then befriends new arrival to the city Ganesh (Ajith Kumar) and his sister Thamizh (Lakshmi Menon). Thamizh is applying to study in a prestigious art college in the city and Ganesh appears as the perfect older brother – supportive and encouraging in every way, while maintaining an unruffled and happily smiling exterior no matter what the circumstances.  While Thamizh gets accepted into the art college, Ganesh manages to get a job driving a taxi, despite not speaking a word of Bengali or knowing anything about the city – sounds like your typical taxi driver really!

Siva adds more humour with Soori as the manager of the taxi company, but his brand of comedy only works part of the time and it reaches a nadir when the tired out trope of philandering husband is rolled out yet again. Shruti Haasan also shows up in a comedy role as an unscrupulous lawyer, Swetha, who ends up with a grudge against Ganesh. None of her intense overacting in her initial scenes is funny and her wardrobe choices are equally atrocious, but her character does have a few redeeming moments later on in the film. In one of those typical film coincidences, Swetha’s brother Arjun (Ashwin Kakumanu) falls in love with Thamizh which adds romance into the film and gives Ganesh the opportunity to deliver a good ‘big brother’ speech about women’s safety. It’s a shame that such a good message about how stalking ≠ love and men should respect women is immediately followed by a song featuring Shruti and backing dancers in skimpy outfits and terrible choreography, but at least the speech did get a cheer in Melbourne.

Just before the break Ganesh reveals his true persona, first in an excellent fight scene and then in a genuinely frightening exchange with Swetha that sets up a flashback sequence in the second half. All of the smiling and the ‘always cheery’ disposition starts to grate by then, so the switch to bad-ass fighter Ganesh (aka Vedalam) comes as a welcome change. No-one does the switch from happy smile to scary psychotic grimace as well as Ajith – it really is disturbing and Siva uses the transformation sparingly but to very good effect throughout the film.

The reason for Ganesh’s outburst of violence goes back to the gangster seen in the opening scene. Ratna Bhai and his two brothers Abhinay (Kabir Duhan Singh) and Aniket (Aniket Chouhan) control the skin trade out of India amongst various other criminal activities and Ganesh has come up against them in the past. The flash-back sequence is well done, generating an emotional reason for Ganesh to seek revenge but without becoming overly sentimental or clichéd. The villains do what villains in these films usually do, while there is really never any doubt that Ganesh will defeat them all in the end. However the lead up to the final fight scene is very well written with a few good surprises to build the suspense. The last fight is also brilliantly done and the film is worth watching for this last sequence alone.

Anirudh’s music is good and fits the screenplay well, with Aaluma Doluma standing out as the best track.  The background score is occasionally distractingly loud, but I like the theme and it suits the schizophrenic nature of Ajith’s character. Mostly the songs are well pictured too apart from the previously mentioned ‘Don’t You Mess With Me’, which really deserved better and isn’t helped by the skanky choreography. Technically the film is slick and well-edited with good effects and novel fight choreography. There isn’t too much blood and gore either, although it’s always surprising how quickly the bad guys run out of bullets and resort to fist fights when they really should know better!

Vedalam is Ajith’s film all the way and he does a superb job as a dangerous and scary man while still conveying kindness and sympathy in the scenes with Thamizh. The support cast are all just that – support for Ajith, but Lakshmi Menon is good as his oblivious sister while Sudha and Thambi Ramaiah make an impression in their small roles in the flashback sequence.  Vedalam isn’t a perfect film, the comedy isn’t great and the villains are standard caricatures with predictable habits, but Ajith is very watchable and the story works well with some unexpected twists, especially at the end.  Worth watching for Ajith and the excellent final fight scene – plus Rajendran of course!

Naanum Rowdy Dhaan

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Naanum Rowdy Dhaan

I’m loving the recent ‘new wave’ in Tamil comedy that seems to be producing hit after hit and some very funny films. Naanum Rowdy Dhaan is the latest release from writer/director Vignesh Shivan and it’s a perfect example of the genre, mixing a good story with great dialogue and brilliant performances from a very competent cast. As an added bonus the film even has grammatically correct English subtitles (I’m going to assume that they were accurate too), ensuring I was laughing at the right moments – or at least along with everyone else.

The story is set in Pondicherry, which is another plus for me since it’s only a few years since I visited and quite a few of the locations were familiar. Pandi (Vijay Sethupathi) first appears onscreen as a young boy (Surya Vijay Sethupathi – Vijay’s son?) sitting in a jail, occupied with filling in the front of a school notebook with his interesting ambition (given his current location) of joining the police force. However all is not as it seems. Pandi is the son of the police inspector (Raadhika Sarathkumar) and the real occupant of the cell is Raja, played by one of my favourite ‘bad guys’, Rajendran. Yay! While waiting for his lawyer and get-out-of-jail-free card, Raja tells the young Pandi a story about a rowdy and a cop, when Pandi asked which is the better job prospect. The subsequent tale has the effect of changing Pandi’s mind about his career choice and he carefully changes the word in his notebook from police to rowdy.

So it’s a little surprising then when we see grown up Pandi to find he is going through a battery of tests to become a police officer, although he spends most of his time telling others how much better rowdyism is compared to law enforcement. But once away from the testing area Pandi is indeed a rowdy. Well, kind of.

Because Pandi isn’t a very rowdy-like rowdy.

Along with his gang of friends he has a lair painted with fluorescent paint on the walls that lists fees for various acts of violence, but when it comes down to it he doesn’t actually do any of these things. Instead the gang enacts a drama, getting people to pretend to have been beaten up or injured and then sending a photo of the ‘injury’ to the client. Pandi’s biggest success is arbitrating in a schoolboy squabble and most of his ‘swagger’ is an elaborate act without any real substance.

But then he meets Kadambari and gets involved in the search for her missing father. Kadambari is hearing impaired after an injury and her father is a police officer on the cusp of retirement. It turns out that the story Raja told at the start of the film was based in fact with the rowdy, Killivalavan (Parthiban) getting the better of police officer Ravikumar (Azhagam Perumal). Kadambari wants her revenge and since true love means killing your girlfriends enemy, Pandi takes on the job. Or at least offers to hold Killivalavan while Kadambari stabs him to death. A true gentleman!

The jokes come thick and fast from the numerous attempts to kill Killivalavan (or at least get him to apologise) to Raja’s gun that has a silencer that mews like a cat. The dialogue is very funny and the cast all do a good job in delivering their lines for maximum effect. Even Nayantara, who has a brilliantly comedic scene when she is kidnapped by another rowdy (Anandaraj) which had everyone in the cinema in stitches. Generally Nayantara is much better here than she was in Masss, giving her character plenty of personality and managing good chemistry with her co-star. She does well with the comedy too, and shows just what a good actress she can be when given the chance.

Vijay Sethupathi looks amazingly different here from his previous roles such as Soodhu Kavvum or Idharkuthane Aasaipattai Balakumara. Without his beard he appears years younger and seems to have shed some bulkiness along with the age which suits his character well. He still has the same great timing and flair for comedy though, working well with RJ Balaji in the role of Pandi’s long suffering friend. Balaji plays it straight but has plenty of witty comments and his delivery is perfectly timed. Together the two make a great pair and the dialogue between them is written so well as to appear natural and unforced – something which is rare in most comedies. Pandi tries very hard to be a tough guy, and when push comes to shove he proves he can hold his own, but he’d much rather just show the ‘tude rather than court any confrontation, while Balaji wants nothing to do with ‘real’ rowdyism at all.

Anirudh Ravichander provides the music and the soundtrack fits into the mood of the story well. Vijay Sethupathi skilfully avoids any actual dancing, and the songs themselves work well to move the romance story forward. George C Williams is the man behind the cinematography and as in his earlier films, he has a sure touch with the camera ensuring the film looks perfect too. Overall Naanum Rowdy Dhaan is an excellent entertainer combining action and comedy with a dash of romance. Recommended for Vijay Sethupathi, Nayantara and a very funny screenplay.

Ethir Neechal (2013)

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Ethir Neechal

Ethir Neechal is one of those films I’ve been meaning to watch for ages, mainly because I loved the soundtrack when it first came out, but also because I’d seen the video for Local Boys and thought it looked fantastic.  It also sounded unusual, with a story combining an attempt to run the Chennai marathon with a romance and some comedy, plus a reference to real-life track athlete Santhi Soundarajan added in to the mix.  Unfortunately though, despite a good beginning, the film loses its way in the second half where the light and breezy romance is suddenly pushed to one side by the trials and tribulations of a serious sports story and it never quite recovers.  Still, Siva Karthikeyan is a likeable hero and there is that excellent soundtrack which makes Ethir Neechal worth at least a one-time watch.

The film starts with the woes of a young man with an unfortunate name. Kunjithapatham (Siva Karthikeyan) has endured sniggers and laughter for years as the short form of his name is apparently a rude word in Tamil. His one childhood rebellion to try to change his name resulted in his mother falling ill, so he decides to put up with his name and just get on with life. He’s fairly successful too, but the combination of an insensitive boss and a romance that falls through when the girl hears his name means that finally Kunjithapatham decides to takes his friend Peter’s (Sathish) advice and change his name. Naturally this can’t be a simple decision and requires a visit to numerologist Gunasekara Raja (Manobala) to finally come up with the new name of Harish.

No sooner has he changed his name than good things start to happen for Harish. He meets up with teacher Geetha (Priya Anand) and falls in love straight away when she compliments him on his name. Harish also gets a new job and makes a clean break with his old name and old life. Everything seems to be going along fantastically well until Geetha finds out that he lied to her to hide his old name. She’s unimpressed and Harish resolves to achieve something that will allow him to make a name for himself and make Geetha proud of him.

Harish decides to run the Chennai marathon, and not just in an attempt to finish. Oh no – nothing that basic. Harish wants to win the race, despite only starting to train when he signs up a few months out from the event. This is where Valli (Nandita) enters the story as a trainer for Harish and the story suddenly turns serious.

After a run in with corrupt coach Raja Singh (Ravi Prakash), Valli was stripped of her medal at the Asian games when she failed a gender test. Harish learns of her story and this gives him another reason to win the marathon and beat Raja Singh’s current top runner. The problem is that there is an extended flashback showing Valli’s struggles as a young athlete and the issues she faced in trying to compete. While I appreciate R. S. Durai Senthilkumar’s attempt to raise awareness of the difficulties athletes in India face, Valli’s story acts as a road block and completely changes the mood of the film.

Valli is based on the athlete Santhi Soundarajan, whose real-life story is compelling enough to be a film in its own right rather than just as a brief add-on as seen here. It’s not just that Valli’s struggles don’t fit well with the rest of the film but her story doesn’t add anything to Harish’s attempts to be accepted – despite both characters having an ‘invisible handicap’ to overcome. Valli is also fairly unlikeable as portrayed here and with her prickly and antagonistic nature it’s difficult to warm to the character. Nandita seems dull and lifeless in the role, although she is better in the flashback in the scenes with her father (Sharath Lohitashwa), so I presume her grumpy attitude was due to the director. The happy romance of the earlier scenes is completely overshadowed by her serious and dour attitude, so it’s a relief when the film does move on to the actual race and the mental and physical struggle faced by Harish. Even though the film stays serious, Siva Karthikeyan is a personable hero and the marathon is well filmed with just enough tension in the race to keep it entertaining right to the end.

Siva Karthikeyan does a good job with his role and fits well into the boy-next-door type of romantic hero. He’s in his element in the comedy scenes and has a good partnership with Sathish as the two play off each other perfectly. There are some very good moments in the early scenes with Geetha too and Priya Anand is perfectly suited to her role as a primary school teacher. She has a wonderfully expressive face and makes a good partner for Siva Karthikeyan as the two slowly develop their relationship with a few misunderstandings along the way. They make a realistic couple and it would have been good to see more of their relationship and the effect of Harish’s new determination as he  started training rather than the shift in focus to a different story with Valli.

The best part of the film is undoubtedly the upbeat soundtrack from Anirudh, and thankfully the song picturisations are complementary to the music. In addition to producing the film and his guest appearance in the movie, Dhanush has collaborated in writing lyrics and by singing a few of the songs, while Anirudh also makes a brief appearance as a bar owner. Most of the early songs have a classic flash-mob feel as various apparently random members of the public join in, and the backing dancers range from obviously fit professionals to chubby lunghi-clad uncles in Local Boys.  Boomi Enna Suthudhe  has a particularly random and accident prone start that seems to perfectly fit Harish’s character.

R. S. Durai Senthilkumar seems unsure if he wants to make a romantic comedy or a serious sports film, and really should have picked one and stuck to it. The first half of the film works much better for me and I’d give it 4 stars, but the slow pace and sharp change in mood means that overall I give the film 3 stars. Worth a watch for Priya Anand, Siva Karthikeyan and for a chance to sing along to the songs!