VV - Vendaadha Velai !

Thanks to Shankar, My neighbor (better known to you as Dachchu's dad), who got me the tickets for the very first day show. I wanted to review the movie, and go ga-ga about it. But certain things prevent me from doing that. Read on.

What is the fate of Sequel movies ? Except Terminator II and a very few exceptions, most of them failed. Not even Spielberg was successful with a sequel to Jurassic Park. Why ? May be because the expectations are accumulated and eventually hyped up. People are sure, the director or the actor would have done a lot of hard work to come up with an excellent movie, that would be more than exciting than the first one.

I belong to that category of people. What did Gautham Menon do ?

He begins the movie with a Caption "Another Episode in the Life of a Police Officer". I say "Wow ! That is Isshtyle !". But little did I realize at that point, it was completely a rework of his latest Blockbuster - Kakka Kakka. Gautham had tried Reusability in terms of Story line, Actors and even Character Names. But he may not be able to duplicate the appreciations.. atleast this time. Especially from a Kamal fan, like me.

Sorry Mr. Gautham. You should have realized how big an actor Kamal is, and should have taken extra care in the story-line. We all understand this movie had taken wild and unfortunate turns. Yet, if the project had began with this story, then I guess the bad luck was planted right there.

After a Super-cool introduction fight and a song, Kamalhaasan - Raghavan DCP flies to Madurai to investigate a murder, on Special request from his Ex-Boss Prakashraj. Raghavan is treated with more shocks as more and more killings happen, which take him to New York for investigation. There he uncovers a string which has a Serial-killer on the other end. The killer gets personal, and decides to take revenge on Raghavan. Raghavan's chase to catch the killer and the Killer's plight to smash Raghavan is what Vettaiyadu Vilaiyadu is all about.

Jyothika has a very difficult name - Aaradhana. Something doesn't gel, everytime Raghavan says this name. Aaradhana is just another girl in New York who incidentally meets Raghavan, and eventually both of them fall in love. Jyothika scores when she cries. Professional acting. She doesn't overact like how she does in other movies. Kamaline Mukherjee - Kayalvizhi appears for a very short duration, as Raghavan's wife in a very short flashback and to me the pair looked like Father-Daughter. However Kamaline Mukherjee wins a lot of hearts with a beautiful smile.

New techniques in Editing, and technically advanced cinematography don't really help. Fast moving scenes dont make a fast movie. You need to add tempo to it. First half was too elongated. And the entire theatre, however, enjoyed the second part. It was furious. Lots of Sex and Violence sprinkled across, and some Gross Language.

Kamalhaasan - is an actor with so many years of experience in acting. You cannot run an Acting factory with just a spike buster. You need more power points. Depth. It is different in the case of Vasool Raja MBBS or Panchathanthiram. They are meant to be comedies, and hence a story line is not important. It expects Kamal's spontaneous comic sense to play. Mind you, it is difficult to act comedy. Plus - Kamal interferes in the directors job and gives more inputs to it. We have heard C. Sundar and Singeetham Srinivasa Rao are just shadow-directors. But Vettayadu Vilayadu was a Gautham movie, and it clearly shows up that Kamal hadnt interfered.

Vettayadu Vilayadu requires a small hero like Surya. In fact, that would have added strength if this movie was completely explicit as Kakka Kakka - 2. If the movie continued on that story, it would have added value to the Director.

Think whatever, but here's what I commented on Lazygeek's Blog, when the movie was announced, way back in 2005 April.

But Gautham needs an Obidient Actor, and Kamal needs a Silent Director. Lets see if the Polarities match.

Here's what Gautham said in his interview (Uncut version) to Sudhish Kamath.

lots of stuff happened between me and him because of the production. He was pissed off with change in producer, the film was not taking off, his time was getting delayed all. He was very unhappy and hesitant initially. He was like "Bunch of kids, what are they gonna make" and stuff like that.

Yes. A lot of places in the movie were childish. And you could guess till the end, what would happen next. Kakka Kakka wasnt like that entirely. It had a composure. If Tamilnadu had not seen Kakka Kakka earlier, they would rejoice this movie.

I thought I would write a review about this movie, but ended in a post like this. I forgot to mention Harris Jeyaraj. Thats because he never showed up, anywhere. Songs are all good, but none of them well picturised. May be because of Production sodhappals. We can excuse that.

Uyirile Enadhu Uyirile - My favourite song of the movie, thankfully has come out well.

Anyways, dont take my word. Dont trust me. Watch this movie. It is good to watch. Only dont expect too much out of it. I may like Gautham's next movie, because I will not be expecting anything new in it.

But the good thing about it is, the movie is released in So Many theatres so that they get back the money faster. They will. No Doubt. There is one innocent man by name - Mr. Manickam Narayanan. By my instincts, never in his lifetime will he decide to take up projects like this. I sincerely wish him good luck.. and can help him by watching it a coupla times more. I wanna see if I missed something in it, amidst huge whistles and applauses.

However, I dont expect any thrill or happiness in it.

Allright... Dasavathaaram guys.. Lets start the worship !