Vallakottai Review

When some of young league actors are into the safest bets of remaking successful regional movies, Arjun has seemingly joined the bandwagon now. The actor’s previous releases weren’t up to the expected levels and this time he strikes with ‘Vallakottai’, a remake of yesteryear Malayalam blockbuster movie ‘Maayavi’. The original version had Mammooty and Gopika in lead roles with Shafi crafting an interesting tale of more gripping moments.

Well known for making fast-paced commercial entertainers, director A. Venkatesh has remade the film suiting the tastes of Tamil regions.

In simple terms, ‘Vallakottai’ turns to be a passable show on whole with the right mix of comedy, action and family sentiments.

Accepting the crimes of others for the sake of money, Muthu (Arjun) often gets into prison. On a special occasion, he is released from the prison for his good behavior and is again bounded to a critical situation. His inmate Balu’s (Prem) younger brother needs Rs.8 Lakhs for his brain surgery. Muthu’s friend Giri (Sathyan) gets him a big deal, which is quite speculative as well in Vallakottai. He is supposed to accept the murder upon Eeswara Pandian (Suresh), which is yet to be committed by Nachiyar family due to conflicts and in return will get Rs.8Lakhs as his remuneration. Meanwhile, he comes across Anjali (Haripriya), who has been working as an accountant for the family of Eeswara Pandian family. Understanding the situation, he soon disguises himself in different get-ups as ‘Vaayu Puthiran’ and starts attacking the baddies.

A Venkatesh’s neat adaptation of this Malayalam works out well to a certain degree. The film has a running length just 2 Hours 10minutes with the complete first half narrated in interesting style. Though Arjun’s character reminds us off Prashanth in ‘Star’, the delineation goes for an abrupt change soon as the story get into main plot. Arjun has tried his best on comedy quotients and amuses the audiences. His mimicries of various actors and attacking in different get-ups of Hrithik Roshan’s ‘Krish’, Johnny Depp’s ‘Pirates of Carrabean’ and Kamal Haasan’s ‘Indian’ is interesting. The second half lacks pace during penultimate sequence and just as Prem’s true colors are revealed, it takes a different turn. Balancing the suspense of ‘Vaayu Puthiran’ amongst the characters till the climax is good. Hari Priya in traditional sarees looks cute, but doesn’t captivate with glamorous quotients. Ganja Karuppu is annoying. He has to work a lot on his script instead of beating the same bush. Vincent Ashokan, Aashish Vidyarthi sleepwalks through the role of baddies. Suresh is okay and Prem is below average.

Technically, Venkatesh never renders his interests. The song ‘Semmozhiyae’ is a copycat of Hindu religious song ‘Kallanaalum Trichanduril’ and none of the numbers are appreciable.

Arjun can better opt for such remake films instead of keeping himself strongly glued to the patriotisms-n-vengeance seeking movies.

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