Velayudham sees Vijay in safe masala territory and offers little else.
If you’re a Vijay fan, you probably know how it all works – an absolutely mindless film filled with – an intro scene (here he runs alongside a fast running train, catches up with it and gets in pulling the chain for others from his village to get into it), a comedy track with a sidekick comedian (Santhanam) and a sister here (Saranya Mohan), his ‘loveable’ antics in the village including causing mayhem while running after a hen (Singh is Kinng used this too), a little vulgarity thrown in for the front-benchers with the bimbette-hormones-on-overdrive heroine (Hansika) and generous displays of her belly button and mid-riff, some vintage Vijay dance moves to largely beat oriented music (read noise), the odd emotional scene and preachy punch dialogue, loud action with blood flowing like water, tons of glass breaking (and in this case, bombs going off), and lots of dead bodies, a message from Vijay – all this put together under the familiar, familiar, familiar story of a guy from the village who comes to Chennai and becomes the Assassin Creed looking super-hero (inadvertently at first), cleaning up the city and bringing its nasty politicians, underworld figures and corrupt cops etc to justice. And for admirers of Vijay, it has to be said he acquits himself well, seems to be enjoying himself, shows fine comic timing, and gives them enough to whistle, cheer and clap about.
As far as the other elements go in this Mohan Raja film, there is a strict deja vu here as well in this re-make of the Nagarjuna starrer Azad (2000), barring the odd well-tackled moment (when he tells Genelia he actually loves Hansika). So we have embarrassingly bad acting by Genelia – she thankfully keeps her perkiness in check but unfortunately doesn’t know what else to do – and Hansika (her funny face-making and lack of acting skills have to be seen to be believed), few genuine comic moments provided by Santhanam and Saranya Mohan, hammy, contorting face-making by the villains, functional technicalities etc, etc, etc…
All in all, for Vijay fans only, otherwise nothing else in the film really.
Tamil, Action, Drama, Color