Thursday, August 24, 2006

Coming Soon - Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu


After all the financial and legal wrangles, Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu is finally ready to hit the screens tomorrow (there is a news item [link courtesy Ram] today that Kamal’s asking for a stay on the release since the producer’s check to him bounced. Hope that doesn’t stall the release again!). Right from the day it was announced, the film has created huge expectations. And with good reason. It brings together our best actor, our cutest actress and one of our most exciting young directors and promises to be an exciting ride.

Behind the camera is director Gautam Menon, who is just 2 Tamil films old. His Kaakka Kaakka was definitely one of the better cop pictures to hit Tamil cinema recently. It was fast-paced, slick and hard-hitting and proved that a film with those characteristics could still work commercially. Considering that his previous (and also his first) film was the romantic Minnale, it also showed that Gautham was comfortable in more than one genre. For VV, he has again picked a cop story and we have to wait and see what sort of a spin he puts on it this time.

Kamal fans must be salivating at the news that the film is finally making it to the screens. Its been more than a year since their hero’s last film (Mumbai Express) was released and even that was a flop. VV offers a good chance to for him to reverse his fortunes. While Kamal usually swings between experimental films close to his heart and commercial ventures, VV cannot be pigeonholed into either of those categories. It is definitely commercial but is not one of those light comedies he frequently stars in.

Jo is paired with Kamal here. The next three weeks will probably count as the most thrilling in Jo’s life so far since she has two big movies and a wedding to look forward to. Not much is known about her role in VV but it appears that she is not paired up with Kamal. That honor(?) goes to Bengali lass Kamalinee Mukherjee since according to reports, she is the one acting as Kamal’s wife.

A major portion of the film is set in New York and it is supposedly a suspense thriller, a genre in which we've had few worthy entries in Tamil cinema. Expectedly, it is set to open big and has little competition (Sillunu Oru Kaadhal, touted as its only competition, isn’t releasing until September 7). In the USA, Kamal’s films always do well and 2 of tomorrow’s shows are already sold out at IMC 6.

The last time Kamal’s film went through so many hassles before release (Virumaandi), it turned out to be both a critical and commercial hit. Let’s hope the same happens with Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu

24 Comments:

At 11:16 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

bb, there's a news item on sify abt the last-minute tension and that the check issue has been sorted out!
thank G O D for that!
anyways, inge So. Cal-la no screenings this weekend :( have to wait n watch...no way i am "downloading" this movie...either in the theatre or original DVD...this film looks way too cool for anything lesser...at least from the trailers thaz what i think!

 
At 11:49 PM, Blogger KK said...

BB I am really eager to see this movie...I was just praying that this movie should be released in Chicago...and god has answered the prayers...its releasing here too...I am all excited to watch it... :)

 
At 12:11 AM, Blogger Balaji said...

ram, good to hear :) so looks like it'll be releasing tomorrow after all!

kk, guess we can compare notes after this weekend :)

 
At 10:52 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Im watching it today evening and am finding it hard to not read reviews..that way I get a first hand view of the film! You are right about the tickets, they are sold out at IMC6. Luckily the tics for our group was bought in advance..yaaay :)

 
At 12:05 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

advance booking is excellent for VV in tamil nadu and karnataka. heard in US too, the openig is good. reiews say the movie is very much watchable. got to watch it tomorrow, if i get the ticket.

 
At 12:54 PM, Blogger Narayanan Venkitu said...

Balaji
I am planning to see it Sunday. Looks like there is a lot of sex and violence in the 2nd half ( per Keerthi who has reviewed it). I couldn't find a sitter on Saturday. If I get tickets I'll be at IMC6 on Sunday.

Enjoy the movie and please review ASAP.

Thankyou

 
At 12:54 PM, Blogger Narayanan Venkitu said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

 
At 3:15 PM, Blogger Balaji said...

skanda, lucky u! but glad u didn't talk too much about the movie. u'll know what i thot about the movie on sunday or monday :)

shwetha, yep. already received a couple of reviews as emails. didn't even open them :)

vijay, no surprises there. the combo will ensure a great opening... and its been awhile since we had a 'big' film that we really looked forward to...

narayanan, i'm seeing it tonite... will try to put the review up tomorrow night. if u want a mini-review(maybe a couple of lines), send me an email and i will reply :)

 
At 3:24 PM, Blogger Narayanan Venkitu said...

Sure balaji,

Thank you I'll check the review tomorrow night.

If possible send a mini-review to

specialdosa at gmail dot com

==

For me - I am wondering about the Sex and violence. I'd like to know your take on that too..so that I can decide if I can take my kids.
==

 
At 8:51 PM, Blogger Aravind said...

cons:not worth the hype. not a kamal special.draggin at times .one needless song.lotta space wasted for gore.little comedy.logical flaws.
pros:Kamal as he always is.simple jothika.camera.bgm.intro scene.small comic dialogues by kamal here and there.

 
At 11:21 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

My bro saw this last night, and yes, it sounded like CSI. They (bro, sis-in-law) hated it.

 
At 10:34 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

just coming back from Kasi theatre, chennai.
yes, its very much CSI types. the first half is dragging but the 2nd half is quite fast-paced. esp climax brings u to the edge of the seat. but to get such a riveting climax, u have to sit thru an utterly long n stretched first half. Kamal searches for a girl, finds a corpse, feels bad, searches again, finds a corpse, again feels bad..this goes on and on and on..and then comes jothika...the most irritating character in the movie. their romance is somethng that could hv been avoided.

im somewhat disappointed. i expected a stunner from Kamal but the movie is just okay.

 
At 11:03 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Very engaging movie, but I felt it somehow lacked the soul of Kaakha Kaakha as there was no chemistry between Kamal and the other actors (Jo and his fellow cops). However, this one had fewer logical flaws and was more tightly packaged than KK.

Kamal underplayed his part brilliantly (even "crying" differently this time) while Balaji was the scene-stealer. Technically, the movie was top-notch and for once, Harris has done a good job with the re-recording. I don't know how the gore and the language will go down the family audiences back home, but I think Gautham has to be applauded for once again thinking out of the box. I, for one, will revisit this again for Kamal!

SK

 
At 2:27 PM, Blogger anantha said...

Narayan: Sir, Not for the kids this one.. particularly under 10s!

BB: Dunno if you have seen it yet. I saw it last night here in NJ. Agree with Vijay about the hype and certainly don't agree with SK in the "logical flaws" part. Won't say anything more. Yes, it is gory, but not any more gory than the your standard Hollywood bloodfest. And the "language" was blanked out, for some reason. Interestingly Omkara's liberal sprinkling of "chuthiya" was not blanked at all.

 
At 5:05 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

After a long time Kamal has acted in a director's movie and a has given a very subdued performance.
Looks like he has learnt from his mistakes in his last few films. Second half is very similar to Kaakha Kaakha . Gautam Menon could have avoided namesakes (ilamaran maaya amudha). Too gory and vulgar.
Technically this movie is superb, especially Kamal's hunt for the duo at the dawn.

 
At 5:44 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anantha, I did not say the movie did not have any logical flaws, just that they were fewer in number compared to Gautham's minnale and KK.

BTW, I saw it at Edison too last nite!

SK

 
At 6:43 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Its worth the wait. Honestly I thought that it would be another dud from kamal.

 
At 8:14 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu is THE WORST MOVIE BY GAUTHAM .

 
At 8:31 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu is horrible.
I WILL NEVER WATCH A GAUTHAM MOVIE IN THEATER !!!

 
At 8:22 AM, Blogger anantha said...

SK: I actually thought that the logical flaws count was higher here or atleast more glaring here with VV. I was on the 11:30 show that began only at 12:15.

BB: A koshtin for you and/or anybody else who knows the business side of these things. Why is that almost every single hyped up movie's first show gets screwed? Tempers run high every time. Isn't it possible to get these things in on time (like the previous day) and in order at all? From my personal experience,

1. Swadesh's tickets were oversold in Chicago. People who got in just before the show began found no seats and had to transfer tickets to the next show. Big chain theater, so the whole thing was largely painless, inspite of the change and the resulting wait.

2. Rang De Basanti's reels were badly mixed up in Delaware. The guy who bought the show to the small town was so high handed and refused to come in to the theater to sort out the mixup and refused to even offer an alternative when we told him on the phone that the reels were mixed up. Only some people like me who had seen it earlier could figure out something was wrong. The theater guys were basically powerless to do anything apart from calling the "organizer" up.

3. VV's showing in Edison was delayed by 45 minutes with little or no notice (I am not even talking about advance notice). Not too much trouble except that this was already close to midnight and people like me were already going to end up home at only 3 even if it had started on time. And for some reason, after paying $11, I end up in a hall that smells like the bed-bug infested halls in the back alleys of Thanjavur.

4. Chandramukhi's showing in Jersey was also delayed, but I wont complain too much cos I got lost while driving and got in half hour late. Found that I had missed only 5 odd minutes. And they had more than one screen starting at the same time so almost no one was turned away for the lack of seating space.

And latest is the Chicago fiasco. Imagine cancelling a show, delaying the next and screwing up after the first half which means a lot of the people who paid up actually left after the half and have not seen the second part at all.

Btw, did anyone here actually get to see it in Chicago? It seems after random delays ranging from the non arrival of the "potti" to upside down images and scenes in reverse after the first half, the movie was screened from 2:30 am in the morning!

Read this and this for a better description of what happened at Chicago on Friday night/Saturday morning.

(P.S: Saari for the long comment!)

 
At 12:28 PM, Blogger Balaji said...

aravind/prakash/vijay/SK/anantha/sriram, will talk about the movie in my review (should be online tonite)

anantha, i'm guessing that the problems u mention happen @ a number of the movies but u experienced them/heard about them since u/more people c only the hyped up movies and hear about these issues for only such big movies. we had problems for VV too with the 8pm show not starting until 8.45pm(they told us b4 the show that the film would start 10 mins late) and the other shows on fri were affected too. and the showing of 'anniyan' i was at had the problem of interruptions and mixed-up reels (they apologized by giving an 'anniyan' CD to all attendees!). then again films like 'chandramukhi'(the biggest of 'em all!) went off without a hitch though i saw them on the first day while smaller films like 'priyasakhi' had problems also. people were probably glad when things like this happen at bad movies and so don't complain/blog about it!

i'm not sure about the hindi films but the problems with the tamil films happen cos of print delays. with the release not confirmed till the last minute and issues cropping up even then, the shipping gets delayed and so even a few hrs delay at, say, customs leads to delays for all the day's shows since they usually have 1 print and move reels from 1 screen to the next.

the mixed up reels i think is just the operator/owner's fault. all this reels switching betn screens probably causes that. and since the projectionist probably hasn't seen the film fully yet, he has no clue that he has inserted the wrong reel!

 
At 12:57 PM, Blogger anantha said...

BB: Ya, I actually understand the reasons, but I cannot make sense of the bad business decisions that lead to such things. even the stupidest hindi movies do business and that is solely cos they are released here.
And am sure the sizable Tamil population will pay to watch movies on screen, if we are assured of a good experience...

 
At 2:04 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anantha..I was at the 10 show that began at 10:45. The reason we were given was that the flight carrying the prints arrived late! While that may have been truth, what pissed me was that they made us stand in a queue for almost an hour to let us inside the movie hall that was empty. And as you said, the theater itself is a dump. The picture was blurred for the most part as they couldnt get the focus right! I saw Anniyan there last year and a part of the ceiling literally crashed down (I am not kididng!). I just wish they would show these Tamil movies at Regal on Route 1 in New Brunswick. I saw Chandramukhi there.

SK

 
At 4:45 PM, Blogger anantha said...

SK: You mean the theater in the Pathmark complex, right? Ya, that was a lot better.

 

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