VANMAM MOVIE REVIEW

Vanmam (Vengeance) is overtly a revenge story as the title suggests. Director Jai Krishna has set the whole scene up in Nagercoil, where he has carefully carved out the very nativity of the soil. But, does the movie live up to our expectations?

Vanmam takes off slowly with the first half of the story predominantly swirling over the depth of the friendship between Radha, played by Vijay Sethupathi and Chelladurai, played by Kreshna. The director uses onslaughts and action to portray this depth and the intention appears to be successful. However, the first hour of the movie surfaces in bits and pieces connected with some unsatisfactory editing and screenplay. The songs could have been placed at better situations and one might get the feeling that the romance song could have been snipped off.

The stand out element in the film is Vijay Sethupathi, who has managed to attach his performance to the nativity of the location to the best of his ability. This would be the first time that we see Vijay Sethupathi in hardcore action sequences, dressed in a white shirt and dhoti throughout the movie. The actor scores effortlessly in some portions, one of them being the scene where he breaks into Kreshna’s house under the influence of alcohol.

Kreshna and Sunaina share good onscreen chemistry and the gist of the movie revolves around the consequences of their love for each other.

Being an action oriented revenge story, the stunts have been neatly choreographed with equal momentousness for both Vijay Sethupathi and Kreshna.

Jai Krishna has opted to make use of a very linear style of narration that portrays events in a lined up order, not trying to be too ambitious, creating unwanted suspense that is often predicted by the current cinema goers. However, the film’s hefty dosage of drama makes the movie slightly less tolerable.

The dialogues have an invariable Nagercoil slang, which have been delivered to perfection by most of the actors. Words like “41 Naal Adiyandharam”,  “Makkale”, “Vetti  Kooru Pottiruven”, “Iree (sit)”, “Urangu (sleep)”  etc  might catch the likeness of audiences residing in the southernmost part of the state.

Bala Bharani’s cinematography is decent throughout the film with a lot of depth in the closeups and some neatly framed crane shots that illustrate the beauty of the backdrop. Thaman’s BGM appears to have been composed keeping family viewers in mind as he has kept it plain without too much experimentation.

Produced by V. Hitesh Jhabak and Nemichand Jhabak, Vanmam is a flat story on friendship, business, romance, family and vengeance, which has been portrayed in a decent native setting.