Vijay Sethupathy is back after a 9 month hiatus along with Kreshna in an all village centric flick. Two friends who stick to life no matter what cross roads across when an unexpected disaster hits them, what happens next? Directed by Jai Krishna who happens to be the former assistant of Ulaganayagan Kamal Hassan, the film dwells in the rural milieu quite comfortably. What can circumstances do to our lives? Jai Krishna takes this one liner as the theme, a small mistake, an incident that you did not want to happen but just happens, how will it change things? Adding pinches of commercial elements as romance, friendship, sentiment and some boiling anger sums up Vanmam.
The Story:
Vijay Sethupathy and Kreshna are two best chums who appear friends for life, and of course as one might have guessed they are jobless, carefree but the happiest. Sunaina plays the love interest of Kreshna who repeatedly pleads him to have some seriousness in life. Enter brother of Sunaina who is straight forward, all time angry with a sense of extreme self-respect. The director keeps shuttling between various storylines; the friendship between Vijay Sethupathy-Kreshna, the romance cum advice sessions between Kreshna-Sunaina, and a fitting duel between Sunaina’s brother Madhusudhan Rao and his business rival.
The screenplay drags to establish the lead actors their role-play, just when you start thinking that this is an average story of friendship and romance, a sudden turn out of events put the friends in jeopardy. In a fight between Sunaina’s brother and Kreshna/Vijay the former gets killed accidently, a situation that comes out of nowhere and starts to roll out the predicament between Vijay Sethupathy and Kreshna. With the cold war starting to break out, the first half revives an urge to see what happens between the friends. Does the tension escalate or do the friends patch up, what happens to their love? The guilt covered Vijay Sethupathy on one side, a seething Kreshna on the other side and the family of the deceased all sum up for a fitting finish in the second half.
Whats good?:
To start with, Kudos to the director for capturing the rural essence as it is, the language dialect is refreshing to hear and appears the team has made enough research to implement the dialogues for each actor. The cinematography is clean with some neat visuals capturing the rural setting at ease. Jai Krishna has rather taken a “done and dusted” storyline oozed it with some predicaments to make it little interesting, thanks to the lead actors Kreshna, Vijay Sethupathy and Sunaina the movie has its moments. Vijay Sethupathy’s rugged looks are a treat, his daring attitude is something to appreciate whereas Kreshna’s occasional comic sense prevail at time.
Why, What and How?:
1. The friendship between Kreshna and Vijay Sethupathy has no strong dialogues nor does give the punch to show their bond.
2. The length is arguable and stalls the movie’s intention; the slow build up of characters adds fuel to the fire.
3. The story itself is runoffthemill kind; the director could have induced some comic elements to spice up the dull screenplay.
4. Music as a whole is a letdown, none of the songs or the BGM are apt to the story.
5. The second half is roughed up with sentiments galore and appears to be induced rather forcefully than just to tug along with the storyline.
Verdict : In all Vanmam is a story of anger, love, friendship and how one should take life just by circumstances but how to move on.
Star : 2.25/5
