Vettayadu Vilayadu

The latest Kamalhassan flick and I saw it on the 1st day, to get hands on experience of the theatre on 1st day these days..no hungama, no big aarthis or big disturbances, infact lotsa sensible appreciations..
Over to the movie now:
If I were to tell u only till the interval, I wud be telling u that this is/was the best made Indian movie..but then there was the 2nd half and that too for soo long that the drag really puts this in the lower bracket of movies..what a shame they cud not sustain the pace and plot in the 2nd half too..IMHO they had atleast handful chances to end the movie (every 10 mins or so ) in the 2nd half and they muffed it..

The pace at which the movie races in the 1st half, how the story unfolds, the slick movie making, presentation – all gives a feeling of “Hollywood”..But why did Kamal and jothika had to speak so much English..(infact very good ones like – “am not ready for a relationship as yet”; “I owe him that much..infact much more..” oops- was it not supposed to be a tamil flick?? And when ever the NYPD guy speaks there is subtitle in tamil, why was it not there when kamal, jyoths, villain all speak such fluent English!
As someone in the theatre commented “hey..this fella wants to act in a Hollywood movie and so this is the nearest he can go”;-)

What a movie it cud have become if only kamal and Gautham (both known to sothapify climax) not got carried away..if they had not included forcibly such love scenes..infact the movie does not need heroine and there r 2 here..(they only needed woman chars to be killed by the villains in this movie and for nothing else!) and songs come thrusted on u untimely.
So u think there r no pluses, ofcourse there are!
-kamal , kamal, kamal – his screen presence, portrayal of a tough officer, and how trim he looks..(but there is some solace for some of us : inspite of his fitness freak obsession many a times his tummy is seen..hey if kamal shall get it all of us shud and so don’t feel bad about it anymore..go lagao 2 in my name)
-the slick presentation and editing – shud be rated one of the best in Indian makes
-the dialog, more so the word play (be it in english or tamil) was fundoo
-photography and esp the diff angles in which they show even Newyork grand and great (oh! I have an European influ and don’t like NY that much – crowded and dirty). But the presentation of NY and certain shots make Hollywood look far behind
-there are lots of scenes that have a ‘rush effect’ and many occasions when the screen is split in to two and the way they come on u are fantastic..

to the negatives..
-too many murders and the villains perform them so easily! very gory..
-too much was said in the 1st half itself..infact I was wondering during the interval that ‘the villains have been shown, their reason for murders everything disclosed what they have for the 2nd half?’ and that was more or less true..so they had nothing and so dragged with jyotika, her daughter, amateurish fancy dress like appearance changes for villains, illogical escapes from airports, just filling in time like we used to do in answer sheet in madras univ exams..fill in asmuch even if u do not know the right answer may be they u get marks for them too..
-the villains are debutants and they have done well within their capab. But for a debutant its too heavy a role and it wud needed real 'weight guys' to carry that weight..its very rare that new kids perform and take credit (karan of nammavar comes to mind)
-the vilains get away too easily and kill too many too easily
-Kamal leding the way in a typical mgr/rajinish way and solving all possi probs for NYPD (hey I shall not b e surprised if NYPD sues kamal for belittling them so badly and solving all their probs with just his tamil hero ‘instincts’

But still u come out with a feeling u hav indeed seen a slick and good movie but how many will understand the english dialogs, how many will like the gory killings though filmed so hollywoodish, how many wud see it again..as the bolywood BO is based on repeat audience we have another kamal movie prolly failing in the BO!