Its Vijayakanth all the way in this tale of warring stepbrothers who unite to take
revenge on the people who killed their father. After Vaanathai
Pola and Vallarasu , Vijayakanth is enjoying a
cinematic rebirth and the director's sole intention here seems to be to make his
fans happy and milk his new box-office potential for all it is worth. So Vijayakanth is
cast in three roles and appears in almost all frames of the movie. But with a story
that is almost as old as tamil cinema itself, that alone is not enough to save this
movie.
Sakthivel(Vijayakanth) and Thangarasu(Vijayakanth) are stepbrothers and both are
respected by the villagers. But Sakthivel refuses to even acknowledge Thangarasu
as his brother since he believes that it was Thangarasu's mother who killed
their father. Thangarasu too is under this impression until his grandfather(R.Sunderrajan)
tells him the truth. Their father(Vijayakanth), whose first wife(Ambika) was a
sharp-tongued woman, married Kannamma(Viji) when she earned a bad name. Thangarasu,
who is now convinced that his mother was a good woman, sets out to find the truth.
Apart from the simplistic and ancient story, the direction too is amateurish. The
director follows the standard formula of a song followed by a fight to move things
along. To show that the older Vijayakanth is a good samaritan, he uses a sequence
of events where he donates land and money to different poor families. This sequence
is rather unprofessional and serves as an example for the unsophisticated feel of the
whole movie. With several scenes where the brothers meet and a fight sequence too,
could have atleast capitalised on the double role to spice things up. Unfortunately,
even that oppurtunity is squandered. While a few scenes,
like a couple of shots in the fight, are handled well, the director has not gone into
much trouble to hide the fact that a double has been used in all the scenes where
the camera is behind one of the Vijayakanths.
Compelled to stick to Vijayakanth's image, the director is unable to show any
difference between the three Vijayakanths(except for their wigs). So all three
are incredibly good-hearted, benevolent, strong and adored by the villagers.
This naturally drains all interest from the movie. The only interest in the
movie comes from the mystery behind the father's death. And this portion abounds
in hard-to-believe 'twists'. Why would R.Sunderrajan not tell Vijayakanth, who
thinks badly of his own mother, the real story much earlier? And there is no reason
for Manorama to hide her 'secret', that results in someone spending a lot of time in
prison, for so many years.
Vijayakanth being wooed by Manthra and Radhika Choudhary seems almost like an
afterthought, added to increase the romance quotient since the other two
Vijayakanths are already married. These scenes are neither cute nor interesting.
Vijayakanth and Kushboo are the more interesting couple with him angry with
his stepbrother and she trying to improve their relations. She also has fun
in the scene where she gets drunk. That scene is definitely funnier than Vaiyapuri's
lame attempts at comedy. Senthil also has a go at raising laughs but is no more
successful.
Vijayakanth just has to play the same role three times over since there is no
reason to differentiate between the three roles. He displays the usual robustness
in the fight sequences. Like Rajnikanth, he shows
signs of political ambitions through his dialogs and even songs playing in
the background. None of the others have much screen time and Ambika makes
the most of her role. Kushboo and Viji, back on screen after a long gap,
also make an impression. S.A.Rajkumar doesn't churn out anything impressive
and continues his tradition of using songs from other movies as fillers.
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