Valimai Review {3/5}: Ajith’s star vehicle banks more on stunts than substance

H Vinoth’s Valimai begins with a collection of chain-snatching incidents and smuggling dedicated by masked males on bikes in Chennai. The general public is up in arms towards the police drive, who’re clueless. In an inner monologue, the police chief (Selva) needs for an excellent cop to stop such crimes. The motion then cuts to Madurai, the place a temple procession is underway.then we’re launched to ACP Arjun (Ajith Kumar), the movie’s protagonist, whose introduction is intercut with scenes from the procession. Like a God who’s held up excessive, we see this character rising up from the depths. Briefly, a whistle-worthy hero-introduction scene.

We anticipate that Vinoth has executed away with the obligatory fan service given his star’s stature and can get round to creating the movie he needed to make. And it does appear so for some time when Arjun will get posted to Chennai and begins investigating a suicide case that appears related to the chain-snatching and drug-smuggling circumstances from earlier than. Like in his earlier cop movie, the relentless Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru, the director throws at us his analysis and whereas the detailing appears spectacular, there’s a sense of deja vu as a lot of it’s one thing we’ve seen in movies like Metro, Chakra and Marainthirunthu Parkkum Marmam Enna. And we get sentimentalism when he insists on exhibiting us the destiny of the victims, which feels redundant.

Whilst Arjun begins going after the leads, the gang’s mastermind (Kartikeya Gummakonda) realises that the cop is on to him, and issues flip right into a harmful cat-and-mouse recreation, wherein Arjun’s household turn into pawns. Can Arjun save each his household and the town from this harmful prison?

It is a conflict between stunts and sentiment in Valimai, a considerably participating however overlong motion film that hides its simplistic writing with elaborate motion set-pieces. We preserve getting a way of Vinoth attempting arduous to strike a steadiness between making a gritty motion film and satisfying the calls for of a star car, with message, sentiment, and ‘mass’ moments. Regardless of the story having scope for rooting the motion scenes in emotion, he’s content material with treating them as simply standalone set-pieces.

We see this method clearly within the superficial method wherein the movie offers with its secondary characters and their relationship with Arjun. They’re primarily one-note — loving mom (Sumithra), drunkard brother (Achyuth Kumar), supportive colleague (Huma Qureshi); or worse, caricatures — corrupt cops (GM Sundar and Dinesh Prabhakar), tattoo-sporting, Goth-like villain’s girlfriend (Bani J). The arc of a dejected brother (Raj Ayyappan) who goes rogue, which is what drives the plot within the second half, is not constructed convincingly. We search for one thing completely different, like Huma’s character, which is refreshingly not that of a romantic curiosity. However even this character will get one kickass second after which is relegated to being a sidekick. That is why the movie feels much less impactful when we aren’t in the course of an motion sequence. The plot begins to really feel prefer it was written primarily as a aid between the stunt scenes. No surprise some scenes, like those inside a police convention room, seem amateurish.

Vinoth does attempt to make up for this with the stunts, that are principally big-screen spectacles which might be fantastically choreographed (Dhilip Subbarayan is the stunt choreographer) and are undoubtedly the movie’s spotlight. A motorbike chase within the pre-interval portion and a chase involving a bus, a truck and plenty of bikers within the second half are positively edge-of-the-seat stuff. However they’ll solely achieve this a lot, and we want the director had put in as a lot effort into the opposite scenes as nicely.

Finally, Valimai is a battle between good and evil. There are clear analogies to Batman. Like that masked superhero, Arjun, too, does not imagine in killing criminals to eradicate crime. We frequently see him wearing black, along with his face hidden beneath a helmet, particularly when is taking over the dangerous guys. He, too, is up towards an anarchist who does not imagine in society. And at one level, he faces a state of affairs wherein he has to decide on between saving his family members and the lives of the general public.

And Ajith performs this position like a superhero. The opposite characters, too, have a look at him like he is one. The actor lends credibility to the stunt scenes and tries to raise the opposite scenes along with his star energy. There are occasions it really works (a scene in jail when he has to interrupt somebody’s arm) and occasions when it does not (the monologue within the climax). However there isn’t a denying that it’s his presence that holds collectively these two jarring tones of the movie.

Valimai has additionally been dubbed and launched in Hindi, Telugu and Kannada.

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