Vettai - review

The Buzz:

• In an industry dominated by solo hero films, two multi-starrers clash during the same holiday weekend 
• Madhavan and Arya come together in a Linguswamy film with two lovely ladies (Especially Amala Paul!)

The good: Racy entertaining plot, Great casting and performances by the lead actors 

The bad: Songs, Make up (Maybe Sameera Reddy's full-time make up assistant was on leave!)

Look out for: The title roll. Surprised to see Arya get top billing (Above Madhavan). Whatever happened to seniority and respect for elders (!)  

Bottomline: As commercial directors go, Linguswamy's directing career has been full of ups like Run and Paiyya and downs like Ji and Bheema. I'm not sure if Vettai will emulate the success of his big BO blockbusters but it is a fun ride. In an industry where we have seen some of the bizzare on-screen brothers (Like Vijayakanth and Malayalam actor Dileep) Madhavan and Arya look like brothers and act like them. Maddy is the passive older brother who always needs his younger sibling Arya to fight his battles while Arya plays the cool dude who can mow down 20 guys without upsetting the wrinkles on his shirt. The cool dude bit suits him but not mouthing 'Punch' dialogues like wannabe superstars before punching the bad guys. Maddy becomes a cop and Arya shadows him beating up all the bad guys and cleaning Tuticorin town of scum while Maddy takes the credit. Things take an interesting turn when the bad guys (Ashutosh Rana and Srijith Ravi in a deadly cameo) figure out the brothers' act and go after Maddy.  There were probably two Yuvan Shankar Rajas that worked on this film - the brilliant guy who composed the background music and the out of tunes guy who did the songs though speed breakers would be a more appropriate description. As with most mindless films the plot is wafer thin (Not even sure there's a wafer in the ice cream) but with a tight and racy screenplay, sparkling chemistry between the male leads topped with the right glam quotient (Despite some seriously bad make up for Sameera) Linguswamy makes this film worth a watch.   

Running time: 160 minutes (Approx)