When I decided to watch Villu on pongal, I figured it couldn’t get worse than Kuruvi. Actually, I doubt if any movie can get worse than Kuruvi. I was right. Villu is just as bad as Kuruvi. Not worse.
Pugazh (Vijay) comes flying in to save a girl who’s about to be raped by the bad guys who are everywhere when the movie begins. He’s the saree man who’s face gets entagled in lots of different colored sarees and then suddenly you can see his face when the wind blows. The villan stops to ask him ‘Ipdi single-a variye da, nee yaaru, Bruce Lee ya illa Jet Li ya?’ Vijay smiles at them and says ‘Gilli da!’ So, the rest of the movie is just as ridiculous. The opening song is just another version of ‘Adungada enna suthi’ from Pokkiri (Music for Pokkiri was done by Mani Sharma and this one is by Devi Sri Prasad). The lyrics are just the usual Vijay ones saying, I want your anbu and I want the agadhis to have a house, the general political jaalra. Definite ground work for Vijay’s katchi is being taken care of in his songs.
The movie desperately tries to recreate everything about Pokkiri that became a hit (or at least so they thought) right from Prabhu Deva’s guest performance in the opening song to Vadivelu’s weird hair-do to the mystery bit about the hero’s identity till the climax to the dialogues to the tunes to just about everything. It ends up being just ridiculous. I know its too much to ask for logic in a Vijay padam but the fact that the villans do not recognise him in spite of being best buds with his father (which is also played by Vijay, yes, double act wonly), who’s death he’s trying to avenge, is just completely ridiculous. When the interval comes, you’ve seen 3 songs and 3 fights and you’re no closer to understanding anything about the plot. Even if you really really try. Actually, as I write this I realise there’s a list of things I really don’t get. So here’s the list of things that totally do not work in the movie:
- The story has absolutely not an ounce of logic in it.
- Vijay has nothing more to copy from Rajnikanth. He just doesn’t get it that even if he bites his collar, chews bubble gum, has Thalapathy background score for the climax sequence, has full ‘thaimaar, thamizh naadu, thamizh mann’ kinda dialgoues, he’s not even remotely close to becoming the superstar.
- The dialogues are ’spit on your neck, kick you in the crotch’ (can’t translate if you don’t watch Friends) fantastic. Its not possible for punch dialog writter to write english dialogues that is grammatically right.
- Devi Sri Prasad has readapted nice sounding tunes by other music directors to this movie. But if you discount that, the songs are actually a welcome relief.
- Nayantara has very li’l acting to do and very li’l clothes to wear. So we will also say very li’l about her also.
- Vadivelu must simply come up with something other that cow dungs flying into his face and weird hairstyle kind of jokes. High time!
- Geetha has been established herself as Amma for a while now. Looks like Ranjitha is soon joining that list too.
- Prakash Raj has played a suave villan. He’s suave cos he wears coats with Polka dots, maanga design, mismatched colours and hideous material. If acting in movies like these helps him make money to make movies like Abhiyum Naanum, I say act on.
In short, save yourself some time, money and effort and give this movie a miss.
Bommalattam is one of the movies I was really looking forward to for 2 reasons. Bharathiraja and Nana Patekar. Tik tik tik and Sigappu Rojakkal are two of my favorite thrillers. And I happened to listen to this interview of Bharathiraja where he mentioned that he rates Bommalattam over the two, I just had to see it.
The movie starts off with a murder and and Nana Patekar is believed to be guilty, without an ounce of doubt. Nana Patekar (Rana) is an eccentric director who everyone is in awe of but hates. He’s headstrong, passionate and is known to be a womaniser. His has a rocky personal life with his wife (Ranjitha) storming into his sets and slapping women she suspects him of having an affair with. 2 more murders are associated with Rana during the making of his legendary movie which he attracts a lot of attention as he does so without revealing the heroine’s face or identity.
Arjun (Vivek Varma), a CBI officer is roped in to investigate the murders as the plot thickens. All evidence points towards Rana as everyone is suspcious of his special treatment and soft spot for his herione, Trishna (Rukmini). Arjun is also suspected to have a personal grouch against Rana as his girlfriend, Kajal Agarwal, leaves him cos he warns her against Rana, who she’s a huge fan of.
This whodunnit ends in a way that no one could ever have imagined in their wildest dreams. The twist in the tale really does take you by surprise. But I felt a little let down by the very last scene of the movie which was too filmy after such a mindblowing climax. Bharathiraja has once again proven that he writes the best thriller screenplays.
Drawbacks:
- Vivek’s role in the movie is a waste of time. He could’ve well been edited out.
- The editing could’ve been tighter cos at some places the lack of pace is very evident.
- Music, actually songs. I would’ve loved to see this movie without any songs at all. Himmesh’s music is anyway below average. Background score was average. I can only imagine what Ilayaraja’s RR could’ve done to this movie.
- Kajal’s role in the movie is undefined. How she becomes the director’s friend is very unclear.
Definitely once watchable.
