Vettaikaran Review-1.5 out of 5

Star-casts: Vijay, Anushka, Salim Ghosh, Shayaji Shinde, Satyan, Sri Hari and others.

Production: Sun Pictures, AVM Productions

Direction: Babu Sivan

Music: Vijay Anthony

Cinematography: Gopinath

Editing: V.T. Vijay

Vijay’s fate continues – What does this mean? It’s so simple; ‘Vettaikaran’ in no way differs from his pervious films that were dissatisfying for the universal audiences. Vijay follows the same pattern of superman act of jumping from loftiest water falls with just a wound on his knee, yelling with punch dialogues and flying reverse sans gravity effects in stunt sequences.

The day Vijay stops working on these elements, he’s sure to make it big and gain yet more masses towards him. It’s worth mentioning that Vijay had whole lot of female fans, but with most of his recent films merely bounded to violence and punch dialogues, he’s loosing away the attention.

‘Vettaikaran’ has a right mix of Dharani’s ‘Dhill’ (mentor of Babu Sivan), ‘Tirupatchi’ and ‘Bhagavathy’.

The film is about Ravi (Vijay) in Tuticorin, whose only aim is to become a cop just like an IPS officer Rajendran. After passing his 12th std examination after 4 attempts, Ravi heads for Chennai with a big dream of completing his graduation and becoming a cop. He comes across his cherubic girl Susheela (Anushka) and falls in love at first sight with her.

After joining a college in Chennai, Ravi hires an auto from his girl classmate’s father (Manickam Vinayagam) for bread and butter. When things are well and fine, Ravi feels so disappointed as he isn’t able to meet his role model Rajendran IPS as his house is always locked. His neighbors reveal that he has fled to Delhi on some mission and will return merely after 6 months, which is not true.

Meanwhile, he comes in for a hand-in-hand combat with a local goon Chella, who handles illegal businesses of his don father Vedanayagam (Salim Ghosh).

What follows next is a series of more clichéd storyline that can be doubtlessly predicted.

As usual Vijay dances well, utters dialogues that favors his fans and ‘Thai Kulam’. But in the second half, he starts beating the same bush of high-pitched punch dialogues. Though they aren’t more in number, the stunt sequences will really annoy you after a certain extent. Anushka, the red-hot girly makes you forget her ‘Arundhathi’ image as she gets into extreme glamour. Of course, she will leave a big lump in your throats out on erotic blast. Salim Ghosh does justice to his role, but is found repeating the same act again and again. Satyan is okay and Shayaji Shinde as a bad-turned-good cop has done a good job. The person taking on the role of Rajendran IPS is great though he reminds off Nasser’s similar role in ‘Dhill’.

There are whole lots of absurdities so blatant and Babu Sivan should’ve strictly paid attention to these aspects that would have made the film finer. The second half is too lengthy with already seen ingredients of Vijay Vs Aashish Vidyarthi in ‘Bhagavathy’ and Vijay Vs rowdies in ‘Tirupatchi’. It would’ve been better if Vijay had foreshortened the stunt parts in second half. For God’s sake, he can stop conveying social messages… We’re curiously waiting for some of his best entertainers like ‘Badri’, ‘Youth’ and ‘Ghilli’….

After a long time, almost all the songs in Vijay’s film impress the audiences. Especially, he has completely changed his dancing style from his previous films.

Cinematography isn’t impressive and editing is mediocre.

On whole, Sun Pictures’ vivid promotions may turn this average film into a top-drawer, since it’s far better than some of the previous films that were released by the same production house this year.

Bottom - Line: Vijay’s fate continues

Verdict: Below Average…

Kanden Kadhalai- Movie Review (3.65 out of 5)

Kanden Kadhalai - Love is in the air

Banner: Moser Baer

Cast: Bharath, Tamannah, Sapan Saran, Santhanam

Direction: Kannan

Production: V.M. Lalitha

Music: Vidyasagar

Remakes are never an easy task. It has to retain the flavour of the original and at the same time ensure that it suits the local audience for which it has been remade.

Three cheers to filmmaker Kannan for taking the acid test to do the Tamil version of the successful feel-good Hindi entertainer 'Jab We Met' and passing out in flying colours.

Kannan has done his best to match the magic of Bollywood director Imitiaz Ali. Produced by Moser Baer & Blue Ocean and presented by Sun Pictures, 'Kanden Kadhalai' is a movie that is breezy and enthralling all the way. Tamannah plays the role enacted by Kareena Kapoor, while Bharath dons the role performed by Shahid Kapoor.

The story principally revolves around two characters. Though it is no path-breaking story or has any twists in the plot, it still manages to keep one glued to their seats.

Bharath (Sakthivel) and Tamannah (Anjali) hog all limelight playing their role with such ease and cool. The USP of the movie are the simplest scenes. There are no unbelievable stunt sequences or double-entendre or mass heroisms. The story flows smooth and cool all through.

Sakthivel is the son of a rich entrepreneur who is dejected at life and decides to go nowhere. A man with few words, he boards a train only to meet Anjali, who is straight opposite to him. A girl, who loves herself the most, talks a lot without inhibitions.

She is good-hearted and daring. Sequence of events leads to Anjali missing the train during the middle of the journey. The responsibility is now on Sakthivel to take her to her home town in Theni. They come across different experiences and both become thick pals.

Interestingly Sakthi wins the heart of Anjali's family including her grandfather (Ravichandran), her father (Nizhalgal Ravi) and her uncles. But the bubbly Anjali decides to elope from her house to marry her boy friend Goutham (Munna).

She takes the help of Sakthivel. When they elope, the whole family mistakes that Anjali has walked out of the house to marry Sakthivel. But fate has other plans. Sakthivel comes to know that Anjali had not married Goutham and the fact is she has gone missing.

Now their roles reverse. Sakthivel turns charming and bubbly and manages to track Anjali, who has gone quiet and silent after tasting failure in her romance.

Sakthivel promises to get both Anjali and Goutham married. He convinces Goutham and takes them to Theni, where her parents believe that Anjali and Sakthivel are happily married and lead a good life.

The rest is all but efforts by Sakthivel to convince the whole family. But Anjali slowly develops a soft-corner for Sakthivel. Whom she marries forms the climax.

Tamannah is the backbone of the whole movie. She emotes to her best. Hitherto seen as a glam girl, she has got an ample scope to do a performance-oriented role to which she renders full justice.

Not far behind is Bharath. A complex character has been handled with maturity. He impresses in the first half as a soft-spoken dejected youth.

Walking away with all applause is Santhanam. As Mokkai Raju, who is desperate to get married to Anjali, he evokes laughter. His one-liners and spontaneous wits deserve special mention. Munna renders justice to his role. He is comfortable and casual before the screen.

Vidyasagar has rendered a mix of peppy and melodious tunes that set up the momentum. P G Muthiah's cinematography captures Ooty at its pristine glory.

On the flip side, the movie lags a bit towards the second half and the subtle emotion that was present all through in the original was sorely missing.

All said, the movie is a breezy entertainer that would find favour with youngsters.

Kanden Kadhalai - Magic recreated