Movie: Vegam
Cast: Asha Aravind, Jacob Gregory, Vineeth Kumar
Director: Anil Kumar
Rating: Two stars
Kochi: Sudden riches, sadly, is the new-age mantra. Even many who feast on chicken and booze, like the protagonists of Vegam (Fast), truly believe that they are in an economically miserable condition, and nurture degenerative thoughts.
Two roommates (Vineeth Kumar and Jacob Gregory) wish to make loads of quick money. So they enroll as courier boys of a blade mafia. One of them has two plastic kits; he safely keeps the one containing waste, and throws the other containing lacs of rupees into the canal. To recover this loss, they are compelled to commit a crime.
Society, thankfully, has its share of sane people. This includes the girlfriend of one of the boys and a bride-to-be, both of whom value love over money; and a watchman who serves as the guardian of a building as well as of ethics.
The phase that the three main characters are going through is metaphorical to the theme. One is a pizza delivery man who is constantly late even when he speeds recklessly down the highway and wastes no drop of time. The second has a boss who drives him mad everyday with talks of sales targets. While the third needs to immediately find a loan of a few tens of lacs to pay for his daughter’s dowry.
Vineeth Kumar’s face is a mix of apprehension, remorse, anger, and determination. But he simply does not possess the stealth required to steal a bag in broad daylight under the watchful eyes of a rival gang of thieves.
Jacob Gregory makes for the perfect travelling salesman: sweet smiles, when approaching customers; a dog-with-tail-between-legs look, when a product demonstration ends up in disaster; bitterness and frustration, when alone and cursing his situation; a careless and care-a-damn attitude, generally; and a focus on survival, when necessitated to run.
Prathap Pothen stoically wears the fallen face of one who has lost his fortunes in a single stroke but still remains hopeful.
The film appears to have been made on a minimal budget, thus, the pale tones of some of the color-corrected images are pardonable. What cannot be pardoned, though, are the occasional continuity errors caused by incorrect starting and ending points in the actors’ gestures in static scenes comprising shots of varying angles and focal lengths. Unintelligent fights and car chases, and ‘music’ that takes no pity on one’s ear drums, hasten the pace.
The urge to make a quickie that brings in the moolah isn’t as such a crime. But in order to succeed, the filmmaker needs to come up with something that’s worth one’s while. Instead, bereft of substance, Anil Kumar’s get-rich-overnight thriller/drama ends up as a clichéd idea with an impoverished body.
