Velai Illa
Pattadhari 2 Movie Review
CAST:
Dhanush, Amala Paul, Kajol, Samuthirakani, Vivekh, Ritu Varma, Saranya
Ponvannan, GM Kumar, Raiza, Florent Periera
DIRECTION:
Soundarya Rajnikanth
GENRE:
Action
DURATION: 2
hours 9 minutes
SHOW TIMINGS
IN YOUR CITY
VIP 2
SYNOPSIS: Raghuvaran, the happy-go-lucky engineer, is forced to battle it out
with Vasundhara Parameswaran, a powerful but arrogant owner of a construction
company. Has he finally met his match?
VIP 2
REVIEW: How do you take a story where the villain has been vanquished and the
hero emerged triumphant forward? Soundarya Rajnikanth and Dhanush attempt an
answer in Velai Illa Pattadhari-2. Raghuvaran (Dhanush), the brilliant engineer
from a loving, middle-class family, is now trying to come to terms with married
life, and hoping to build on his previous success. It’s lovely to return to the
characters whom we have liked in the first film, right from Raghuvaran, his
father (Samuthirakani), wife Shalini (Amala Paul), and his colleague
Azhagusundaram (Vivekh) to even Harry Potter, the family’s dog.
But there is
an interesting role reversal in Raghuvaran’s household! Shalini is the dominant
person who keeps everyone on their toes. The father, played by Samuthirakani,
is now more of a friend and guide, the role that his mother played when she was
alive. Talking about the mother, the film does overplay the mother sentiment a
bit — it is aware of this and even uses it as a running gag — but a scene on
the terrace mirroring a similar one from Part 1 still manages to be
heartwarming.
These scenes
in Raghuvaran’s home play at a different pitch than in the previous film...
from closer-to-real-life tone, we now get almost spoofy episodes, with the
focus clearly on generating laughs. And yet, these scenes, involving Raghuvaran
and the people close to him are still the film’s charm.
That brings
us to the antagonist, Vasundhara Parameswaran. Kajol is a good choice to play
this character, who feels entitled, is arrogant and stubborn as much as she is
self-made and successful. Her first encounter with Raghuvaran sets the stage
for their conflict. They are opposites in every way. But, she sees that he is
talented and wants (orders) him to work under her. And, Raghuvaran turns down
her offer earning her wrath. Their encounters offer scope to prop up the hero
and give him a larger-than-life image. Vasundhara isn’t an Amul Baby like the
previous film’s antagonist, and proves to be quite a match for Raghuvaran.
Where the
film fails is in how it takes their conflict forward. The first film offered
the chance to set up the characters in Raghuvaran’s life in the first half and
then turn Raghuvaran into a mass hero in the second half. Here, Soundarya has
to set up the conflict right away, so by the time the first half ends, we feel
as if VIP-2 has only covered the whole trajectory of the first film’s
narrative. And in the second half, we get another villainous character, Prakash
(Saravana Subbaiah), a corrupt businessman who wants to build a theme park on a
marshy land. This is hardly a compelling arc, and the film seems like it is
running around in circles, and desperately trying to gain mileage out of recent
events like the jallikattu protests and the Chennai floods.
Also, VIP-2
wants to provide a context to Vasundhara’s behaviour — a female making it big
on her own in a male-dominated world. It is an appreciable thought, but as
drama, this doesn’t really work. Soundarya realises that the concept of ‘a man
putting an arrogant woman in her place’ is outdated and misogynistic. So, she
tries to show Vasundhara’s change of heart differently, but the way it is done
here is hardly convincing and feels implausible.
The other
aspect where the film falls woefully short is in the songs and the score, which
lack the catchiness of Anirudh’s work in the earlier film. While Sean Roldan
did well in Pa. Pandi, here, the music lacks the pep that the genre needs. With
the script also lacking punch, the film ends up being underwhelming.
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