Two winning personalities coming together creates lots of expectations and excitement. Suseendran, fresh from his critically well-received "Azhagarsamiyin Kudhirai" and 'Chiyaan' Vikram, after the heart-warming performance in "Deivathirumagal" join hands for "Raajapaattai". From the very beginning itself, the production team has made it very clear that it would be an out-and-out commercial movie on par with Vikram's earlier hits like "Dhool" and "Saamy". Besides that, the film comprises of good technicians and it was supposed to be a cracking film from the crew. Alas, the end product was of poor quality and far from what the audiences wanted to see.
There's no doubt that Vikram is a brilliant actor, and also it is not wrong to choose a commercial film to sustain the pedigree in the cinema market, but it should be a film with enough flavor to cater to the mass image of the hero. Here Vikram does carry the whole movie on his 'very broad' shoulder, but what is the point of carrying a burden which has no worth? 'Chiyaan' has a very limited role here and the much hyped 17 different get-ups were just small time cinema gimmicks, though he was brilliant as usual for carrying different body language for each get-ups, especially in the "Villadhi Villain" song and in a few scenes in the second half. Vikram looks too 'matured' for the funky, cool colors and it does not suit him very well. Deeksha Seth, makes her debut in Tamizh cinema here and as usual she has nothing much to do other than to look pretty in songs. Legendary director K.Vishwanath as the old grandpa was very adorable and cute with his fantastic timing and expressions but too bad his role too was limited to the first half. The rest of the cast including Pradeep Rawat, Avinash, Sana, Thambi Ramaiah & Mayilsamy was pretty much ordinary and only the stunt actor Aruldass evokes laughter once in a while.
Harikesh and Shobana Kailasam should be applauded for the costumes department as their work was very neat and the hero-heroine pair looked wonderful in the "Paniyepani Poove" song and also with Vikram's funky costumes, though whether it suits him or not is a secondary issue, but it suited the character of 'Anal' Murugan very well. Meanwhile, stunts by 'Anal' Arasu was a bit over-the-top in certain shots but the fight sequences taken in the rain and in the market street was very well coordinated. The technician who has contributed the most is definitely the art director Rajeevan. The whole movie were shot on sets and each set was very natural be it the housing colony, the street market, the film sets, everything was done very neatly. Class work from him, as usual. Mu.Kasivishwanathan did a decent job in the editing department by keeping the film very short and not draggy with unnecessary scenes. Madhie's cinematography was pretty much ordinary this time, but the fight sequences in the rain and in the market street were well captured with clever positioning of camera angles. Yuvan Shankar Raja's song was quite average this time with only 2 songs hummable, which are "Podipaiyan Polave" and "Paniyepani Poove" being the best of the lot. "Podipaiyan Polave" was done with montages and in choreography in colorful and simple sets, erected by Rajeevan in the beach. "Villathi Villain" was picturized in a pretty lame manner with Saloni Aswani making a special appearance in the song. The only bright spark was the various get-ups of Vikram who pretty much fitted into everyone of it! "Paniyepani Poove" was picturized in a rather simple and elegant manner in autumn-filled locations. The much publicized "Laddu Laddu" song featuring 2 hot gals, Shriya Saran and Reemma Sen fails to attract attention as it was placed in the ending credits, which by the time many audiences would have left the cinema hall. Yuvan's background score was pretty decent and neat with the opening rap-bit sung by Emcee Jesz sounding attractive and energetic.
The main drawback of the film is the poor screenplay of Suseendran. Though the story, written by co-director Seenu is a much relevant issue of today, Suseendran's screenplay was very lame and dull. It didn't create any impact, didn't generate any zing and didn't keep the audiences hooked to the screen, even though the film was only running for little more than 2 hours! All the jokes and comedy portions fell flat except for a couple of scenes, thanks to the cute and K.Vishwanath and the poor 'henchman' Aruldass. There confrontation scenes between the protagonist and the antagonists too was very lifeless and looks amateurish with no excitement generated to keep the audiences on their edge of the seats. The only saving grace is the no-nonsense dialogues by writer Baskar Shakthi where a couple of them were real hard 'punches'.
"Raajapaattai" was a total disappointment from a talented crew, which left many audiences thinking was the movie meant to be taken as a serious film or a spoof of some sorts. Vikram promised a pucca mass masala commercial but end of the day, the audiences were treated to a very bland and tasteless product.
Ratings: 2/5 STARS
BY:TAMIL
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