Balaji Mohan simply oozes quirkiness and wittiness in his writing and with the runaway success of his debut, he is back with an intriguingly titled film, 'Vaayai Moodi Pesavum'. The trailers and teasers spelled a fun rom-com, with a young cast and crew and a stylish presentation idea, can Balaji Mohan pull it off for the second time ? Can Tamizh cinema-fans expect a jolly, good ride with 'Vaayai Moodi Pesavum' ?
Making his Tamizh cinema debut is Dulquer Salmaan, the son of Malayalam Superstar Mammootty breezes through his role as the cherubic and talkative sales agent. Building upon the confidence of his Malayalam films' success, Dulquer makes a fantastic debut in this film and is also nearly flawless with his Tamizh pronunciation and dialogue delivery. A definite talent to look out for and hope Tamizh cinema utilizes his acting capability more and better. Nazriya Nazim was simply too good as the beautiful but introvert medical doctor. She perfectly nailed her character and shares good vibes with Dulquer. Madhubala or Madhoo makes her comeback to Tamizh cinema and my word, she looks gorgeous even after all these years and her experience speaks for her, with those minute and fabulous expressions, she gave ! There's a brigade of character artistes in this film and all of them are just wacky personalities. From the mumbling politician R.Pandiarajan, his wise-cracking assistant Kaali Venkat, the foul-mouthed Arjunan, the crazy 'Nuclear Star' John Vijay and his die-hard fan Ramesh Thilak, the always-drunk 'Robo' Shankar, the grumpy and wealthy, old Vinu Chakravarthy, and finally, Balaji Mohan himself as the wily newscaster, made their marks as each one of them has their own different sub-plots in the film. Besides them, there are a few more artistes like RJ Balaji, Nakshathra Nagesh, Abhinav, Satya Priya, Kamala Krishnaswamy, Abhishek, Mime Gopi and etc in the cast. Cool casting, indeed !
Niranjani Ahathian takes care of the costume designing and her work adds more color and charm to the film's presentation. The characters looked lively and colorful thanks to the vibrant costumes, especially for the gorgeous ladies, in the film ! Art direction is handled by A.R Mohan and his art work seamlessly blended with the natural surroundings. The indoor set-up of the lead characters' homes and rooms, were well detailed and had a sense of stylishness to them. Abhinay Sunder Nayak handles the editing, and though his cuts were smooth and easy on the eyes, he could have trimmed some scenes of the several sub-plots of the film. Some episodes become tiresome after a while and is only there for the funny-gag quotient. Nevertheless, it was still a clean and neat work from him. S.Soundar Rajan's cinematography was excellent, especially with the way he projected Munnar, as the cool and beautiful hill station, with his color tone and lighting pattern. Besides that, his camera movements add more zing and fun into the screenplay and complements Balaji Mohan's writing.
Young and fresh music composer Sean Roldan, popular within the independent music album circles, makes his debut in Tamizh cinema. The light-hearted touches and also the groovy touches he gives to his track, has its own charm and effect for the songs. "Shut Up" is the title track and appears during the beginning credits, which has a plain color palette based animation. "Podhum Ini" is the first track and is shot on Dulquer, with plenty of cut-shots, well put together by Abhinay and Munnar's green hillsides were beautifuly captured by S.Soundar Rajan. "Kadhal Ara" is the funky love track, which has mini fantasy episodes in the song, which had simple set works and interspersing of the original story track. "Udaigiren" is a slow, pathos number, which was shot on most of the main characters, especially with the lead pair, in their sad moments, which were shot and shown in montages. "Maatraparavai" becomes a sort of 'happy-endings' song for the characters which were facing separate dilemmas, in their respective sub-plots. The theme tracks such as "Mr.Fix-IT", "Beedhiya Kelappa Jazz" and "The Sound of Silence" appear sporadically, throughout the film, and feature prominently in the second half. Sean Roldan's background score in the second half, adds a good deal of impetus for the film's screenplay, since everyone goes 'silent' in the film. A very good debut !
What works in Balaji Mohan's 'Vaayai Moodi Pesavum', is the simple message of how important and pertinent communication is to each and everyone, and how people take granted of it, being presented in a very fun, and quirky format ! The sub-plots, though has their own respective agendas, are simply funny and very well written by Balaji. Adding more credence to the fun-factor are Balaji's minute and creative ideas, be it the bulletins running during the prime news, the epic YouTube mash-up of R.Pandiarajan's mumbling act, the 'censoring' idea of Arjunan's foul-mouthed ramblings, the spoof and satire of cinema artistes and their real life antics, and etc, etc. Balaji has a proper structure to his screenplay and the second half, falls perfectly well, in which the message was articulately presented. The styling and overall look of the film, be it music, color, picturization, fonts and etc, complemented the script very well, and turned 'Vaayai Moodi Pesavum' as a cool and breezy, up-market entertainer of the year, thus far ! The second half slackens in the pace category, especially with the sentimental episodes, but nonetheless the scenes, were handled maturely. As mentioned earlier, the characters were very well written, keeping in mind the comedy element, and helping the artistes to make their characters stand out, are the humorously written dialogues, which had plenty of witticism, in them. Balaji Mohan has definitely set out a trend in light humor genre, and that too with a dash of fiction in it. This is what you call a whiff of fresh breeze, in Tamizh cinema !
'Vaayai Moodi Pesavum' - Eccentricity woven into the script, with tenacity !
Ratings: 3.25/5 STARS
BY:TAMIL
S.Ezhil, who made a mini comeback of sorts with the decent comedy-drama 'Manam Kothi Paravai', is back with another film which has abundance of comedy portions written throughout the script and aided by nearly the same band of artistes, who were present in his last endeavor. Will S.Ezhil strike it back-to-back ?
Vemal, takes up the male lead role and there's nothing contemporary with his portrayal. He has played the village lad role, relentless of times and he repeats it here as well. There are rooms for improvement as always, and he can at least strive to do something different with his dialogue delivery, with these conventional roles. Bindhu Madhavi looks ravishing in her pretty half-sarees, but is a little out-of-place, if you one is to consider her role's as a village belle. She has potential to be deliver better performances, and hopefully, may better scripts knock her doors. Soori has started to come out on his own and has established himself as a lead comedian. His dialogue rendition reminds us of Vadivelu's, especially with the English words. Nevertheless, he still manages to raise some chuckles, albeit in a non-sterling manner. Singampuli is a riot, with his lively antics and spotless dialogue delivery and well accompanied by Chams, as well. The rest of the cast such as Vinu Chakravarthy, Gnanavel, Ravi Maria, Naren, Singamuthu, Vanitha and etc were befitting of the needs of the script.
Vasugi Bhaskar has done a good job, especially with Bindhu's costumes and her sarees and also for Vemal, who looked much presentable. Dhilip Subbarayan's action choreography is just functional, as per demands of the "masala" elements of the script and is well suited for Vemal's image. Sivaraj's production design was neat, especially with the props used for showcasing the interiors of rural homes, as well as for village festival sets. Gopikrishna's editing sufficed the basic needs of the film. Nothing spectacular about it. Sooraj Nallusami's cinematography complements the wants and needs of the director and he has pretty much, achieved the objective of bringing out the essence of a typical Tamizh cinema rural, commercial film.
D.Imman's score uplifts the mood of the film, with above average scores. The pick of the lot is the opening number, "Oru Ore Ore". Picturized on the lead pair on a temple festival backdrop, the song has good props and set work done by Sivaraj. "Ammadi Ammadi" is a sensuous number shot on the lead pair, in various sets of a small, fruit warehouse. Bindhu looked good in the song and the lighting complemented the feel and mood of the song. Sivaraj, once again does a neat and simple job, with the correct placement of fruits and other props, in the song picturization. "Nilavattam" is another village-festival song, but has been shot in a night sequence. The song has been shot with bright lights and feature a more lively ambiance. Muktha Bhanu makes a guest appearance for this song, and the damsel looks much better in a trimmer physique. "Pom Pom" appears in the end credits, with song picturization done on top of a moving bus. The lead pair was featured along with dancers and the visuals were interspersed with some blooper moments of the film. The background score was done well, but does not stand out as outstanding. Nonetheless, a decent output from D.Imman !
After the decent success of 'Manam Kothi Paravai', S.Ezhil has take a short-cut of sorts in making quick bucks, by aping the same format and template he has used for that film, in 'Desingu Raja' as well. There is no originality in the storyline nor are there any serious attempt in making a decent emotional plot-line for the film. Only S.Ezhil should answer if this film is meant to be an out-and-out comedy entertainer or an average drama, laced with comedy. Though S.Ezhil has projected it as the latter, the former proposition looks likely to be the actual case. In 'Manam Kothi Paravai', there was a serious element or undertone in the film, which formed the actual crux of the storyline and it was wrapped with good comedy portions. But in 'Desingu Raja', there seems to be no inclinations at all, to even attempt a properly structured, emotional content. S.Ezhil gave sole priority to comedy sequences and has laced the whole film, with plenty of them ! The climax is what you call the archetypal, lazy & farcical writing, notoriously prevalent in Tamizh cinema. N.Rajasekar's dialogues, is a big advantage for the comical portions of the film. S.Ezhil can be at least appreciated for keeping the duration of the film, bearable.
'Desingu Raja' - Slapstick comedy, at its average.
Ratings: 2.5/5 STARS
BY:TAMIL
