Padai Veeran Movie Review

When Vijay Yesudas made his onscreen debut as an actor through ‘Maari’, he had to apparently go through mixed reviews upon his antagonistic cop act. Over here in his second outing, he repeats the same avatar of a police, but in good shades. Does he looks befittingly perfect to this role and how about newcomer Dhaya, a former associate of Maniratnam making his directorial debut through this film? Let us have a look into it.

Set against the backdrops of Theni, the story revolves around two villages that have been in communal feud for decades. Hailing from a higher community, Vijay Yesudas is seen as a happy go lucky youngster and spends his dallying with friends. His closest buddy is his uncle (Bharathiraja), who is an ex-military man. Vijay and Amritha remain at loggerheads, but later fall in love with each. Using some conniving methods, Vijay Yesudas manages to become a police and with the influence of his uncle gets into police training in Chennai as well. While things look picture perfect, his way back to village takes him through unexpected turn of events.

There is quite a kind of surprisal, where director Dhana happens to be a protégé of Maniratnam. What we expect from a student of this school would be either a urban based love story or crime noir. But he brings a new age version of Bharathiraja’s communal issues based genre. Well, the story is old patterned and nothing much new about it, except the climax that is literally emotional.

Vijay Yesudas has taken straining efforts to improvise his performance from his debut film ‘Maari’. But to see him in a villager’s role is something inappropriate, but he looks fit as a cop. Amritha is perfect to this role of a village belle. Bharathiraja steals the show with his naturalistically brilliant performance. Kavitha Bharathi of Aruvi fame carries off the role of antagonist with perfection. Kalloori fame Akil appears in a small role, but he looks far better than his erstwhile movies.

Technically, the cinematography can be appreciated for some sequences, especially the one that involves communal clashes. Musical score by Karthik Raja is engrossing in background, but songs are just mediocre.

As on whole, Padai Veeran movie happens to be a routine old fashioned communal violence based film. But we believe that director Dhaya has more potentials to make much more efficient film than this one, which is good one for a starter.