'Veppam' (Tamil)
Director: Anjana
Cast: Nani, Karthik Kumar, Nithya Menon, Bindu Madhavi, Muthukumar and Jennifer
‘Veppam’ revolves around people in slums, their aspirations and struggle to rise above the vicissitudes of life. The film has been scripted and directed by debutant Anjana (Gautham Menon’s assistant and the co-producer of the film). But what was probably meant to be a raw, realistic and gritty tale of misadventure of slum boys trying to make a fast buck turns out to be a confused narrative with loopholes and unanswered questions.
The scenes are disjoined, the narration jumpy, and the characters neither seeming to connect to each other nor to the audience. The earlier scenes depict the childhood of three friends Karthik, Vishnu and Revati. After Karthik’s mother dies, he and his elder brother Balaji alienate from their father, Jothi, who is involved in criminal activities and are left to fend for themselves. Revati’s father, who paints hoardings and banners, becomes their guardian.
Vishnu, who runs a mechanic shop, is adamant about not selling his father’s only legacy, despite his foster-father Madan’s persuasion. The love between Karthik and Revati, and Vishnu’s attraction to Viji (a sex worker) forms the romantic angles in the film. They dream of making fast money, and a drug deal that goes haywire backlashes on them.
The characters lack depth and conviction, and are not fleshed out well in the screenplay.
Jothi’s sudden act of throwing his son to the wolves for a larger stake in the rackets is puzzling. The whole explanation behind Vishnu’s disappearance, narrated in a flashback, is another weak spot. How Madan came to know of the hiding place of Vishnu and Karthik, is too unexplained.
Moreover, Karthik’s casual explanation of how the drugs he and Vishnu carried went missing, doesn’t stand the test of logic. The glitches are just too many to ignore. The best moment in the film is the finale, where Jothi’s wrongs come home to roost. In a lackluster script, the performances can hardly rise above it. And so it happens with young talents like Nani (from Telugu), Karthik and Nitya who have tried to make the best use of their situation.
Muthukumar (from Koothu-ppattarai) manages to leave a mark as the grim sober Balaji. Ammaji, the dreaded gangster character that needs a strong body language and an aura of power lacks assertion with Jennifer’s body language. Joshua Sridhar’s songs are melodious and catchy, but placed inappropriately in the narration. A more coherent script and a stronger grip on the narration would have worked to the film’s advantage. What is appreciable, however, is that instead of the soft themes that women directors tend to take, Anjana has taken on a gritty tale in her debut film.
