Yennai Arindhaal

Ajith Kumar dancing, being emotional and Vivek doing a never before seen style of comedy (different from his usual); if I have to count the easily striking positives of the latest Gautham Menon movie Yennai Arindhaal, these will be the first three. In comparison with the usual flavors of a kollywood film, Yennai Arindhaal is a different experience. But the director has failed miserably in creating a story line and the basic thread will continuously remind you of the thrillers we have seen from GVM. With a sluggishly overloaded story and a predictable repetition of events, Yennai Arindhaal is a disappointment.

Sathyadev is a dedicated police officer who is aggressive against all criminals. Undercover operations are his specialty. The IPS officer gradually falls in love with a dancer who was also a mother of a small girl. The relationship had a tragic end, but the baby changes his life drastically for almost four years. At one particular moment he had to go back to his old aggressive avatar and that gradually makes him a full time cop who is under the investigation about an organ selling racket. The struggle of Sathyadev to bring them down and how he manages to do that even after all personal reasons coming in the middle of it, is what this Gautham Vasudev Menon film talking.

A dedicated super cop, death of his loved one, entry of another girl after this, a very intense villain who just wants to torture the hero to the maximum. Does it remind you of Kaakha Kaakha and Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu? Well that’s basically the biggest problem of this movie; lack of freshness in the content. Even though it has used Ajith in all levels, the tiring 3 hour long narration that just focuses on the central protagonist is too much of seriousness. Mr. Menon has this specialty of presenting the villains in a non typical manner by offering them a different hero to oppose. Here also he was successful in doing that. But the movie was too long that occasionally when you tend to yawn, there will be a high BG score to excite you but that also gradually becomes a cold one.

As a director Gautham Menon has tried to improve himself by adapting certain realistic approaches in visualizing. But it is the writer in him that struggles with content scarcity. Even after collaborating with big names like Sridhar Raghavan and Thiagarajan Kumararaja, Gautham Menon just couldn’t find a fresh story. It is like watching the more technically good version of his own thrillers. Dialogues were nice. Edits were poor. Stunts were okay. Cinematography was nice and the BGM was cool. Music is partially convincing from Harris Jayaraj.

Thala Ajith Kumar has done a really good on screen portrayal. We do get to see the actor performing certain emotional scenes and also some ferocious scenes, which I believe wasn’t there in his recent films. Anushka and Trisha were nice in their respective roles. Arun Vijay as Victor was fabulous. With every thriller he makes, GVM manages to create an actor who plays the antagonist part amazingly. It was nice to see child artist Baby Anikha doing her role smartly. The tidy usage of Vivek’s character and the controlled performance of the actor deserve a special mention. Many other talented faces were wasted in irrelevant characters.

Overall Yennai Arindhaal stands below the expectations. Performances are the main highlight of this Gautham Menon venture which runs on the old platform created by the director himself. The rating for Ajith Kumar’s Yennai Arindhaal is 2.5/5.