Vajram Review: A Bad Hangover

A little over a year ago, four young boys stormed the box office. Goli Soda – a tale of young orphans on the cusp of adulthood, grappling with the society at large, found instant connect with the audience. Naturally, there were a lot of people who suddenly woke up and realised they could be making those kind of movies.

Vajram director SD Ramesh Selvan is clearly one of those. With this film, Ramesh takes the tried and tested basic premise of Goli Soda and its adolescent cast, and gives them a new villain to collectively jump on. Which they do with unabashed enthusiasm.

If the boys – Sree Raam, Kishore, Murugesh and Pandi, were an arresting sight in Goli Soda and Pasanga, here they are plain intolerable. Mouthing dialogues a bit above their pay-grade, they are alternately irritating and pitiful. Their situations are deplorable of course, and their young lives seem to have gone through more misery than their Goli Soda characters; but at one point, it becomes way too melodramatic. Subtlety is often overlooked. Actress Pavni follows the path laid out by Tamil actresses of yore, and looks picture perfect with her dupatta pinned just so in the middle of the goddamn Assam forest. With Jayaprakash and Sana playing the villains of the piece, the circus is complete.

Unfortunately, the music does little to buffer us from this mess.

*****

The Goli Soda hangover notwithstanding, director Ramesh Selvan has to be congratulated on his desire to take on such a story. That too for a debut attempt. Equally deserving of applause are the ten bravehearts who watched this film with us.

*****

The Vajram Review is a Silverscreen original article. It was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the movie. Silverscreen.in and its writers do not have an advertising relationship with movies that are reviewed on the site.