The late 90’s and early 2000’s saw a lot of Mass films being made, the movies rebranded the Hero’s image, took the lead hero’s career to a different level through punch dialogues, mass fights etc. With the need for new age variety picking up, Mass movies required genuine entertainment quotient to win the hearts of the commercial hungry viewers. One actor who has managed over the years to understand commercial cinema better is Ilayathalapathy “Vijay”, who is back in what he does best as Bairavaa. Everything you want to have in a Vijay movie is an ingredient here, sadly the recipe does not cater the racy commercial screenplay one would have expected and instead rides rather too much on Vijay’s charisma leaving behind almost everything.
A jolly good carefree hero sharing a comical time with his sidekick falls in love with an angelic woman, all of a sudden comes in face to face with a mighty villain, decides to bring justice to the needy with a bang, the end.. all is well. The story might be similar to so many Vijay movies from the past, but the racy screenplay, dialogues and very much high entertainment quotient was what made the movies so compulsive. Vijay as Bairavaa follows his traditional Good Samaritan style from the start, there are certainly enjoyable light hearted mass elements in the first few minutes, like the cricket fight when he imitates legendary cricket players and still gets to bash the baddies; sure a treat for any Vijay fan. All is well until he takes a good and a nice glimpse at Keerthi Suresh falling heads over heels on her, from then on the movie goes over a freefall only to be helped by Vijay’s gracious presence.
After a brief few comical gimmicks with Satish, falling over in love with the heroine, Bairavaa gets to find out a startling truth about medical college mafia, the death of an innocent girl decides to bring justice with resources at hand. A good flashback is something that comes into the movie as a subplot, finishes crisply by getting into the narrator’s point of view. However what we get is a dragged flashback with a wastage of lot of screen time, characters and repetitive scenes. Once the flashback of a ghastly death and high voltage fight sequences are done, the interval curtains are raised poising a fitting duel between the hero and his villains ( Jagpathy Babu and Daniel), but what we see is clichéd mind games through the rest.
Let’s leave behind movies like Thupakki for a minute and think of the commercial flicks from Vijay, most of them have good masala content, has punch dialogues spoken out from the actor in dire situations, a strong thumping BGM during his entry, rides high on entertainment quotient and so on. Somehow the idea of an averagely made commercial flick is evident from the start with a forgettable Intro song from Santosh Narayanan and it gets carried on even in the fight sequences where instead of high energetic bass work we hear a completely misfit melodrama. That said, there are fan relishing moments like the actor’s body language is a delight to watch, he wriggles shy as he talks about his ladylove only to be teased by his friend, as usual there are sledging phone conversations, some punch dialogues with a social message, little dance movements here and there.
Time and time we see Vijay’s energetic screen presence and dialogue delivery helping the otherwise straightforward plot, there is one such scene in courtroom where he mutters on some of the social issues with rage, sadly the situation, the courtroom setup ( judges, artwork etc) everything lets his fine acting go in vain. Satish’s wisecracks keep up the spirit for some time and Keerthy Suresh looks lovely in her part and has a meaty role of medical college student, Jagapathi Babu and Daniel Balaji both talented actors are just the usual loud rowdies. Stunt sequences were right on the money, the fight scenes simply screaming with confidence, but what gave away was patchy editing from a skillful national awardee ( Praveen). The film definitely deserves to be lesser by at least 20 minutes which could have made a lot of difference. A lot was expected from director Bharathan after Azhagiye Tamil Magan and somehow with a talented actor in his kitty, he wastes a good opportunity.
Verdict : Bairavaa has its mass moments in the first half, rides on Vijay’s charismatic presence and disappoints on everything else. Should work for Vijay fans big time.
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