Movie review ‘Vadacurry’: Is a fairly engaging film

DIRECTION: Saravana Rajan

RATING: **1/2 Above Average

Vadacurry is debutant director Saravana Rajan’s , (a former assistant of Venkat Prabhu) attempt at a romantic comedy involving grunts, gags, gusto and gelatinous outbursts. Featuring Jai in the lead role, the plot of the film revolves around a simple fact that he is constantly chided by his friends for not possessing an up to date smart phone. Thus being the case, a lucky streak puts him in possession of an IPhone, the real owner of which is initially unknown. Add a kindling romance and a drug dealer to this mix and what we have is a film that whilst initially trying to ‘set things right,’ instead turns out be an effort to get out of a sticky situation.

The first half of the film swiftly moves along with a good amount of jokes and puns to keep our laughter going. Satish (Jai) falls in love with Naveena (Swathy Reddy) but the director clearly has intended to use this as a hinge event around which his comedy can be situated. In the meanwhile, his friend Karikalan’s (RJ Balaji) persuasiveness to have him keep the IPhone lands him in quite the soup. Thus the timid medical representative ends up being in the receiving end of a drug trafficker. This makes for a flaky predicament involving Satish’s proof of innocence and the rescuing of his friend while still answering the callings of love.

Produced by Dhayanidhi Alagiri under Cloud Nine Movies, the movie features a surprise entry of Bollywood actress Sunny Leone and her presence gives it an immediate facelift. But otherwise, although good in parts, numerous scenes can peter out, mostly due to the super thin story and plot. The laughs in the first half were generously distributed, making it a relative breeze for the viewing audience. But one finds hardly any chemistry between the lovers on screen, and the second half can thus fizzle out due to lack of depth, which the laughs alone cannot compensate for. To some extent the camera work by Venkatesh and editing by Praveen salvage these portions.

Jai’s eccentric approach to his acting and his voice is the shining light amongst a cast where nothing really stood out. Swathi in a limited scope tries to pitch in her best. Musicians Mervin and Vivek have done a reasonably good job with the background score, although the placement of some the songs can be questionable. Vadacurry is fairly engaging.