The neo romantic thrillers seem to have a formulaic template that promise to offer a minimum guarantee for the producers and distributors alike. Also the directors, especially the debutantes and relatively new ones feel that it would give them an instant hit. Some of the formulaic films in the recent past include ‘Ivan Vera Maathiri’, ‘Thadayara Thaaka’, ‘Pandiya Nadu’, etc. In all these films, hero would be having a peaceful life in the first half and towards the second half, he would get entangled in the evil cobwebs and would eventually blow them away towards the climax. The intensity and the nature of crimes vary in each of these films while the attitude of the film makers fairly remained the same - to give an instant hit.
Vadacurry also aims at fulfilling this very essence of the mindset that the debutante director Saravana Rajan seems to have borrowed from his peers. Sathish (Jai) is a medical representative and hails from a lower middle-class background from North Chennai. He falls in love with Naveena (Swathi) who is another modified form of a dumb heroine adorning the Kollywood landscape. Sathish gets entangled in a quagmire as he reaches out to upgrade his life by pocketing an iPhone that does not belong to him. He solves the puzzle himself and aces through the setbacks with some run-of-the-mill and not so believable acts that can only be played out on screen with the mass audiences in mind.
The thing which really irked me was the selection of the heroine and her characterization. Swathi has till now done some decent characters in Tamil before this fiasco. This character firmly calls for a Hansika-like female who needn't do anything at all. Maybe Swathi’s attempt at reaching the mass-heroine space has backfired. Ultimately it was one of the major disappointing factors. Jai as the subtle and level balanced boy-next-door has done a good job. But the plot looked stale even though it had some mystery till the end because it was played out on screen so many times in the recent past and there were no prizes for guessing the climax. Another relief was the casting of RJ Balaji as the comedian with the titular name ‘Vadacurry’. His quick wit and repartee upgraded some average scenes into above average ones.
The music is another setback - the song with Sunny Leone was thrust in just to showcase the presence of some extravaganza and also the song that had some graphic sequences to depict Jai’s misery was nothing short of an ‘organized idiosyncrasy’.
Overall the movie can be watched once for its racy screenplay but even if you happen to miss it, it’s not that big a miss!
Verdict: Below Average!
Rating: 2 / 5
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