It is almost as if the two halves of Krodham 2, a rare sequel in tamil cinema, were
directed by two completely different directors. The first half, with its racy screenplay,
high-tech gadgetry and and clever ideas, moves surprisingly fast and keeps us entertained.
But the second half is so full of tired cliches and overwrought sentiments that I half
expected to see P.Vasu's name on the credits! As was the case in the recent
Sabaash , unwanted intrusions like comedy, sentiments and song
sequences affect the movie. If only the skill exhibited in the first
half had been used throughout the movie, Prem might have had an effective and genuinely
successful action-thriller on his hands.
Dheeran(Prem) has been out of jail for two and a half years now but is back at his old job
as self-appointed 'judge, jury and executioner', killing the bad elements in society. DGP
Rajasekhar(Rajiv) and
AC Latha(Kushboo) have enough evidence to incriminate him in these crimes but have other
plans. They want him to kill three bigwigs, Selvakumar(Mansur Ali Khan), Rathnavel(Nasser)
and Yogaraj(Anandraj), who have committed atrocious crimes but have consistently wormed their
way out of the cases against them. Dheeran agrees to this new job and targets the three.
The movie starts off as a standard action movie with Prem(like Rajnikanth in
Naan Sigappu Manidhan ) showing up unannounced to personally
deliver the death sentence to antisocial elements. But Rajiv and Kushboo enter the scene
before it gets too tiring and the movie picks up speed once the three new targets have been
picked. Prem's planning the deaths of Mansur Ali Khan and Nasser are definitely the best
portions of the movie and reveal some good thinking on the part of the director. As in
Vallarasu , brain rather than brawn dominates his plans. Prem's
tactic for forcing Nasser to reveal the place where he has hidden his ill-gotten wealth is
especially ingenious. It is also picturised extremely well with suspense as Prem goes about
his plan and surprise at the cleverness of the plan when it is executed.
High tech is liberally used with Prem using email for communication, satellites
for pinpointing the location of the villains and laptops and computers for pretty much
everything else. Putting aside the question of whether some of the things he does with these
gadgets are even possible, these scenes have been picturised quite well. Ofcourse
there are a few moments which remind us of some Hollywood movies and some amateurish moments
like their choice of a codename for Prem and the DGP of police delivering a cry of joy on
seeing the villains dead, but these can be overlooked since the movie succeeds in entertaining
us.
Hopes are high as Prem starts off devising a plan for eliminating Anandraj. There is promise
in his initial plan and his MO(the way he hides his shoe is very clever). But the plan fizzles
out and so does the movie. His flashback is tiring and exposes his acting limitations too.
Sentiments dominate these portions of the movie and don't die away even after the movie returns
to the present. The climax fight is ordinary and the scene where Prem successfully dodges
bullets is laughable. The first stunt sequence of the movie is actually quite impressive which
again leads me to question whether Prem invested all his efforts in the first half and was
too tired to think by the time the second half came around.
Prem, with his receding hairline and odd dialog delivery, lacks the charisma to be a leading man.
Radhika Choudhary makes an appearance only at the places where she is needed for a duet or two.
Rajiv makes the best impression as the police officer who seeks a way out of the law since his
hands are tied. His performance does justice to the character. Kushboo has nothing much to do.
Senthil and his sidekicks are irritating in their unconnected comedy track. None of Deva's songs
are memorable but his background score for Prem's planning of his crimes is catchy.
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