 With 'Arul', the much-awaited mega release of May, Vikram takes one more step towards the No. 1 slot of Tamil cinema that has been lying vacant ever since the bombing at the box office of Rajnikanth's 'Baba'.
'Chiyan' Vikram, of course, does not play a role even remotely resembling the complex one that gave him the title he reassures. It is, however, through such stereotype roles as in 'Arul' that actors come closer to that coveted slot.
Vikram here is a cotton mill worker in Coimbatore, and carries out a proletarian struggle of a strictly private kind against a host of anti-social forces headed by local MLA Ganapathy (Pasupathi). It is a stunt-packed struggle, too. The action scenes, which number more than in any other Vikram-starrer, includes one where the hero fights his foes with a mere 'kuthuvilakku', the traditional lamp-stand of sacred associations in Tamilnadu.
Vikram, said to have undergone a makeover through indigenous therapy in Kerala for a more youthful persona in this film, has also several song sequences with Jyothika in a high-schoolgirl's half-sari. Among the songs bearing the Harris Jeyaraj impress are Vairamuthu's 'Patthu viral pathittthu' and the more umbustious 'Punnakkunnu'.
Comic scenes, which have no place in the plot, complete the formula of the film, which its producers expect to repeat the success of 'Saamy'.
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