With films with big stars and established directors turning out to be disappointments at best and disasters at worst, the year had not been very good for Mollywood. But by Onam and Ramzan, the line up has emerged good to excellent with movies like `Vairam' coming up with right mix of melodrama and realism. Politician turned director M A Nishad's previous endeavours had been sincere to their messages, but a little outdated in their techniques and narrative constructions. But here in `Vairam' he makes up for that and comes up with the best among his four, this time on a mature scripts by Cheriyan Kalpakavady about a doting father who turns a killer to fight affluent forces who molested his daughter and destroyed his dreams.
In `Vairam', it is Pasupathy who seems to have shouldered the heavy task of holding a multifaceted movie together. He appears to be one of the golden boys of Tamil cinema right now, and does his act in a competent manner with required intensity. Imbuing the author backed role of a distraught father with the right mix of confidence, soberness and arrogance, the movie is an ode to plight of the dozens' of hapless parents who are left in turmoil after the unexpected, untimely loss of daughters.
The movie is all about Sivarajan (Pasupathy) a Tamilian who works as the manager of a rural bank at Thodupuzha. He with his Malayalee wife Devi (Meera Vasudev) weaves a lot around their only beautiful daughter Vairamani (Dhanya Mary), a plus two student. Soon they get the support from Thalikkulam family, the landlord of the town who owns a school and many business ventures. But Sivarajan and family is shattered as Vairamani fails to return from school on the final day of her exams. They next day, the police finds her body from an abandoned well. Sivarajan who couldn't come into terms with the reality of the loss of their only daughter, soon goes back to their native place, but also finds some proof that their daughter was molested and killed by someone they know well. Sivarajan who loss his interest to live takes vengeance and is finally sentenced for a life term.
An investigative journo, Annie Jacob (Samvrutha) who is assigned to dig under the original story of the convict, gets the help of a firebrand lawyer Ravi Varman (Suresh Gopi) to take care of the case. And the movie follows how they with the support of Crime Branch officer Thomas Eeraaly (Mukesh) finds ways to bring out Sivarajan from custody.
Cheriyan Kalapakavady has mixed his very sincere story lines with right amount of commercial ingredients and dialogues, but could have avoided the few regular cliches (like the characterisation of Ravi Varman).The downside of the movie is that it is pretty predictable to the core, with the surprise element lost from the very first scene itself. But the directorial skills and penchant for creating powerful characters transform the story into an almost powerful, movie.
Certainly a movie whose efforts in making needs to be appreciated, the director too has given enough space for all his actors to perform well. Pasupathy's stellar act and pitch-perfect and realistic mannerisms proclaims that he is here to stay in heavy duty roles. Also he will also easily qualify among the year's best's in acting, highlights being the scenes where he identify his daughter's body and that of the vengeance. Senior actors Thilakan and K P A C Lalitha, together with Mukesh, Saikumar, Dhanya Mary and Meera Vasudev has contributed to the richness of power packed performances. Suresh Gopi's relatively smaller role have not much to do than to assure a decent initial to the movie. His unwanted romance element with the journo played by Samvrutha is almost out of place, but don't affect much of the proceedings too much.
And after a short stint with regular stuffs, cinematographer Sanjeev Shankar is also back with quality visuals with apt support in pacing from editor Samjith. The three songs from M Jayachandran are quite hummable, thought "Nattupattu Ketto" pictured on Pasupathy and family is the best offered to top the charts. Gireesh Menon's sets also looks good and appreciable.
Though not a great movie, `Vairam' is definitely a worth watch with some hard brains applied for telling a contemporary story with needed competency and sincerity. Hats off to Nishad, Pasupathy and co. for the genuineness of subject and techniques that they have adopted to make it lighter and digestible even for the family audiences.
