Why Vijay's selection of 'Bairavaa' and its director is praiseworthy

  • IndiaGlitz, [Thursday,January 12 2017]

Ilayathalapathy Vijay's Bairavaa' has released amid huge expectations and yes it has not lived up to the pre-release expectations.

A film may have any number of highlights but a wayward script is just enough to play the spoilsport. While it is true that ther is nothing to be faulted with Vijay's performance in the film, some critics and audience find fault with a star like Vijay for selecting a script like this that too at that too when he has delivered last year's second biggest blockbuster Theri' and completing 25 years in the film industry as a hero.

That justified criticism apart, we still have reasons to praise Vijay for doing this film. It has something with the person in actor Vijay. One needs to have a look at his illustrious career and his selction of films over the years to understand this.

Like many other heroes, Vijay has indeed faltered in selecting the right script many times and Bairavaa' is not just an exception. The same will hold good for his arch rival Ajith and the peers of the duo such as Vikram and Suriya. But one common thing about Vijay and Ajith that lacks in many other heroes to have emerged in the later part of 1990s is that they have time and again worked with debutant directors even after colossal flops. That way they are responsible for the emergence of many talented high profile directors like A.R.Murugadoss, S.J.Suryah, Vijay, Ezhil, Perarasu and Prabhudeva among others.

By committing himself for Bairavaa', Vijay has gone one step ahead. He has teamed up with a director who has delivered a flop with him many years ago after delivering a mega hit and while teaming up again also, the actor is at the peek of his career. This is almost unprecedented.

To understand the greatness of this, we should have a recap of the last ten years of Vijay's acting career.

Exactly ten years before, for Pongal 2007, thefilm Pokkiri' hit the screens and that was directed by Prabhu Deva as his first film in Tamil. The film is not only a commercial blockbuster but it is one of the most memorable commercial mass treat for Vijay fans. Vijay's career had peeked to the top with such a tremendous success. It was at that time he again teamed up with a newcomer Bharathan for Azhagiya Tamil Magan'.

The film released on the same year Deepavali and miserably bombed at the box office and that was followed by below par films like Kuruvi' and Villu'.

Vijay somewhat regained his position with Vettaikaran' which settled for an average verdict at the box office. This film was directed by a newcomer Babu Sivan. Next was the 50th film of Vijay.

Any heroe would want to have a memorable 50th outing and many of them would have gone for a proven combination. But Vijay broke this sterotype and again teamed up with a debutant director S.P.Rajkumar. Sura' turned out to be damn squib and not just that. Even today it is being recalled as the most forgettable film of Vijay by many of his fans and movie buffs.

It was Kavalan' which released for Pongal 2011 which again raised the stakes of Vijay. Fans as well as general movie buffs were in for a sweet surprise to see Vijay in a emotional romance flick after seeing him in a slew of action films. The film made the right noises in the box office. It is to be noted that the film faced so many pre-release struggles till the last minute and the first day first show has to be cancelled everywhere. The film's first show happened to be the matinee show. It was the time when special early morning shows were not that much popular as they are now.

Again Vijay teamed up with a proven director Mohan Raja for Velayudham' which released for Deepavali that year and turned out to be a commercial hit.

The year 2012 was highly crucial in Vijay's career. He teamed up with top most director Shankar for Nanban' and the film which was a remake of Three Idiots' achieved tremendous success. This film also released for Pongal that year. The same year Deepavali saw the release of Thuppakki' which was Vijay's first film with director A.R.Murugadoss who made his debut with the Ajith starrer Dheena'. To know the all class reach of this film. just tandomly pickup any Ajith fan or any other actor's fan and ask him to list the Vijay films he/she likes and Thuppakki' will come be one of their top three favourites. Such big was the mass and class appeal for that film.

Athe next year, Vijay again teamed up with a director who debuted with an Ajith film. It is Vijay and the two Vijays delivered Thalaiva'. The film faced so many problems from enemies who are still unknown at least to the public. The film released in the home state, a few weeks after it got released in overseas locations and by that time many illegal torrent sites had released the film in internet. The film also did not adequately impress the fans and ended up as a failure.

Vijay teamed up again with A.R.Murugadoss to set firecrackers at the Box office for Diwali 2014. Kaththi' which carried a strong content about the pathetic state of farming community is one of the biggest blockbusters of Vijay's career.

After delivering such a huge success Vijay felt it was time to experiment. He sparked a surprise by teaming up with Chimbudevan for a fantasy film Puli'. The film released amid huge expectations in October 2015 but disappointed the fans and movie buffs. Again Vijay should not be faulted for the film's failure. He had completely surrendered to the demands of the script. He was so committed in exploring something new and give a new experience to fans. The script played the spoil sport.

Last year Vijay bounced back with Theri' which collected a whopping Rs.65 crores of theatre owners share in Tamil Nadu itself. This film also did not escape unrelated problems. The film released in the theaters across Chengalpet area- considered to be the biggest market in Tamil Nadu only after a few weeks but still the box office records created history.

Having delivered four blockbusters in five years, Vijay teamed up again with Bharathan, who had directed a flop film with him. In the meantime Bharathan had directed another film Athithi' which did not have any star value. But it is quite a good thriller flick which was remade from Malayalam. Sadly the film went unnoticed mainly due to the lack of popular faces in it.

Bharathan is also a good dialogue writer and he had penned the dialogues for Vijay's earlier super hits Ghillie' and Madurey'. His dialogues for Ajith's super hit Veeram that released in 2014 was very much appreciated by everyone. Vijay also personally liked Bharathan's dialogues for Veeram' to the extent that he remembered many dialogues from the film and