It was declared a
flop. A huge disaster for fans of the first part. I usually love to see fans
getting disappointed with their idols, because my idols do not have so many
fans. Also, I love to watch a super-hyped film, soon after it is thrashed by
fans because such a verdict usually lowers my expectations thereby bettering my
viewing experience.
I was not a huge fan
of VIP. It was a huge hit, the reasons for which I am still trying to find out.
When the second part released, I somehow had managed to gather interest since I
was told that it was written by Dhanush ( I loved his Power Paandi ). Apart
from that, my idol Baradwaj Rangan had given it a very favorable review akin to
his previous ThangaMagan which I happened to like very much.
But right from the
opening scene, VIP 2 could not avoid looking lazy. Lazy not in terms of pace,
but in writing and direction. Kajol walks slowly over to the dais from the hall
entrance while her subordinates receive awards for excellence and attribute
everything to her and she finally, gets a chance to know about Raghuvaran, for
the very first time. I am not saying it is a bad way to introduce the 'Hero'.
But the staging of the sequence is very flat, something which I would attribute
to lack of 'detail'. Why doesn't the writing devote some more time to establish
the 'what' and 'why' parts of the award ceremony, give the awardees something
else to say other than the bland, repetitive 'I dedicate the award to
Vasundhara madam'?
Even the 'family'
scenes are not written well. There is no arc as to explain why such and such
character transforms into such and such ways. Shalini's character is kept
annoying so as to give Raghuvaran a chance to sing the standard Tamil Cinema
'booze' song and to make 'housewives' the butt of easy jokes.
And the much-hyped
idea of Kajol playing Dhanush's counter-weight also doesn't help. She walks
around in designer clothes and mouths her lines mechanically with her wide-open
eyes making it so evident that she does not know the language. I admit that it
is such a badly written part that has no potential to generate even a decent
performance. But I can see standard Tamil Cinema Shrews like Ramya Krishnan and
Vijay Shanti doing something for the role just like how Dhanush manages to do
for his. Yes, he manages to soar over the film's blandness and tries to keep
his fans happy. In the scene where he announces news of his company's first
project acquisition, he hops in the air pumping his fists howling like a Shoaib
Akhtar who has disturbed the holy stumps of Sachin Tendulkar. The infectious
energy he gathers during these masala moments and the saintly poise he acquires
during his tense ones are the only reasons why we remain invested in the movie.
Inspite of all the
laziness, the film managed to surprise me towards the end. It is quite a great
idea to insert 'Chennai Floods' into the screenplay and the way the film
arrives at this point is quite nicely done. The righteous Hero and the menacing
Villain forced to know good things about each other, slowly understanding the
reason behind their differences and getting reconciled only because they don't
have a choice, are all interesting ideas inside a masala movie setup. I would
have loved to see MGR and Nambiar of the 'Enga Veetu Pillai' age do similar
things. Here we have a very charming Dhanush, but an utterly charmless Kajol
and hence their 'warming up' to each other does not work as much as it must
have.
Such endings are quite
dangerous if not handled properly and I am sure that it left a lot of fans
quite unhappy. But I would want to point out that the last scene makes more
sense if you trace the story from the first part of the franchise. The whole
family, on account of the floods, vacate their totally inundated house and move
to the safe 'Yellow' tent of Raghuvaran located on the terrace. The tent, if
you may remember the first part, symbolised Raghuvaran's defiance towards the
'hateful' society which was wholly embodied by his father. And hence the
ending, where the family is left with no other choice than to accept
Raghuvaran's style of living is nothing but some sort of a 'sweet' revenge for
our much-despised Hero.
