Vaigai Express Review

After tasting success with the murder mystery thriller 'Ellam Avan Seyal', actor RK and director Shaji Kailash have teamed up for the less known film 'En Vazhi Thani Vazhi' and now for the third time for 'Vaigai Express' which is again a story of murders and investigation.

Three young women- Radhika (Neetu Chandra), a classical dancer Thulasi Mani and a TV News channel reporter Yamini travelling in the AC coach of Vaigai Express bound to Madurai from Chennai. The investigation goes to a Special police team headed by Samsudheen (RK).

A terrorist (RK Selvamani) who happened to travel in the same train gets caught by the police and he is linked to the three murders. However Samsudheen finds out that the terrorist is not the murderer and starts investigating the co passengers that include an actress (Ineya) and her family, four young doctor friends, TTR (M.S.Bhaskar) and the coach helper.

How Samsudheen finds the murderer(s) of the the three women and if there is any connection between the three deaths, forms the rest of the film.

'Vaigai Express' tries hard to be a thrilling investigative ride but it is anything but that. The most important quality of a any film more so in case of a thriller is that the audience should be invested in the proceedings on the screen but that hardly happens in this film. There is nothing new or interesting in the way the investigator finding out the murderers and their motives except the climax twist which is somewhat appreciable but we are almost drowned out when that comes. Poor acting by almost all the artists, unimaginative sub plots, cinematic dialogues and tacky visuals make the audience restless. The attempts on humor by M.S.Bhaskar and Archana (small screen fame) makes the audience frown. But the film is not bereft of unintentional comedy.

Adding to these, lip sync of dialogues is not proper for many characters in the film, making us wonder whether this is a dubbed film.

As the cop lead character RK has nothing to do other than projecting himself as a mass hero by uttering a lot of punch dialogues and performing over the top stunt sequences. Neetu Chandra gets a powerful role and impresses with her acting in the climax sequences. Nasser and Ramesh Khanna as the officers aiding the investigation process have done their roles neatly. There is nothing to mention about the lot of other actors in the film.

Rerecording by Thaman is loud at times. There are no songs, probably to not dampen the thriller effect which is actually not there in the film. Cinematography by Sanjeev Shankar fits the bill and succeeds in hiding the low production values.

It is highly disappointing to get such a shoddily written and poorly made film coming from the Shaji Kailash-RK duo which has delivered the highly engaging thriller 'Ellam Avan Seyal'.

Verdict: A thriller that does not thrill at all.