Vettaiyaadu Vilayaadu - a definite disappointment

Caught up with Gautam Menon's Vettaiyaadu Vilayaadu (VV) on the second day after its release at Albert cinemas. Heavy rush as you would expect and it took a long time to get a parking space for my two-wheeler. The tickets were ready the previous day itself and so I was delighted to watch VV so early.

The start and the Karka karka... song along with the titles were very striking and I was happy again that I was inside the theatre watching them all. The movie seemed to move fast as a girl (d/o Prakashraj & Rajashree) is kidnapped and one of her fingers is sent to her house later. DCP Raghavan (Kamal) comes into the scene to investigate and figures out that she has been raped, murdered and buried. This happens in Keeranur in Tamilnadu. The DCP vows to catch the crook, though the motives are unknown. After 6 months, the girl's parents move to New York for want of peace of mind and soon they are murdered too in the foreign land, but not buried by the killer.

Now, the movie takes a different turn with Kamal going to New York. The most significant turn is that it gets slower and boring. Probably, Gautam Menon was so overwhelmed by Kamal, thought his presence would do wonders and didn't bother to handle the screenplay better. You even press that button in your watch to check the time and the interval is not there yet. There is a flashback which shows Kamal's bond with Prakashraj (who is also a police officer) and more importantly you also hear the excellent Paartha Mudhal... song. Kamalini Mukherjee appears just for the song and is killed by the villain immediately, who is later encountered to death by Kamal. As Kayalvizhi, Kamalini looks very cute, but too little time on screen to pass any judgement on her skills. As you would expect, there is no finding fault with Kamal's acting - romance, action, grief - his versatility is underlined every now and then. How could a man of his age look so jaunty and fit into any role? To me, he is the greatest ever actor and I don't even want to talk about any doubts. With such a genius at his disposal, Gautam has let everyone down with this product, especially after the Kaakha Kaakha success.

In New York, Kamal saves Aradhana (Jothika) who tries to commit suicide and gets to know that she has had a bitter broken marriage. Later, he accepts Jo and her 11-month old daughter as any hero does. He also investigates the murders along with a NYPD officer, played by Lev Gorn. Both of them find more buried dead bodies, all females - raped and murdered in similar styles to the one found in Keeranur. Now you think, "Oh ok, there's something here and it should be a nice suspense until the hero eventually grabs them by the collar". This is when the greatest disappointment shows. The culprits are shown to us and they kill two policemen as we get the much-awaited snacks break.

Soon after the break, Kamal & Lev zero in on them and enter their locked house. The culprits also come home later and during the confrontation, they accept all their misdoings, but aren't willing to give up. This completely results in tortoising the movie. Then, the villain's justifications, not-so-unusual hero-villain challenges, kidnapping the heroine, chases, some fighting and shooting and finally the villain is killed.

Harris Jeyaraj, somehow has the knack of giving very good tunes for Gautam and has not disappointed. The background scores are laudable and the songs are very good too. New York has been visualized beautifully. Other than that, not many positives to drive home about - atleast nothing that comes to my mind right now. Worthy of waiting for the DVD instead of rushing to the theatres.