Cast: Vijaykanth, Laila

Review: I understand that, unlike me, most of you are actually busy, with “real” work on your hands. But still I got to share this with all of you. Yesterday I watched Kallazhagar starring Vijaykanth and Laila. What is the excuse?…..well it was free and we humans as a race, have a huge weekness for freebies!

The director makes Laila wear a inskirt, dips her in cold water and makes her run for about a mile and covers it in slow motion. Yes you all guessed it right, it is Laila’s debut!

The story goes like this, Laila is a orphan who is cared for by some old woman, who tells her folklore of Kallazhagar while feeding the brat. But she turns to grow up in to a total nutjob, who believes that Kallazhagar will come and marry her just like Kannan married Andaal. One fine day she sees Vijaykanth and thinks that he is Kallazhagar. Can’t blame her, because Vijaykanth is the spitting image of the Kallazhagar statue in the temple. So she goes around bugging the hell out of Vijaykanth. Our man wants nothing to with the whack-job and tells her his story hoping to get rid of her.

Actually Vijaykanth is a muslim guy(Kamaal) who happens to find out that there is a huge plot going on to kill Hindu pilgrims during the Kallazhagar festival. He knows that there will be bombs, but doesn’t know the trivial details like how many bombs, where, who will be planting them…etc. So he comes to the festival disguised as a Hindu guy(KamalaKannan) and gets very pal-y with the village people, teaches vedham and sastram to the Iyengar priests in the village and impresses the hell out of the chief “bhattar”. After a lots of sentimental and patriotic scenes/dialogues he finds out that the “chinna bhattar” is actually a spy from Pakistan and is orchestrating the bomb attack. Kamaal saves the world!

Cast

Gist: Shyam, Laila, Aarya, Pooja and Aasin are collegemates. After they leave college they meet each other for Aarya’s wedding. In this time a lot has happened. The rest of the movie is a flashback about their college life, their friendship, broken hearts and lennnnngthy climax in which Shyam realizes that it is better to give up his one sided love and to marry the girl who loves him.

My 2 cents: This movie was first named Pepsi. After many issues the movie was finally released, but it falls quite short of expectations. Considering the fact that Laila was the only major star when the movie was made, her role receives a lot of importance. Laila is too peppy for her own good, but evokes sympathy when Shaym treats her like a pain in the wrong part of the body. I like her much better when she is calm and composed. A bubbly Laila is pretty irritating. Aarya cannot act for nuts. Let us see if his internship with Bala for ‘Naan Kadavul’ manages to mold him in to a good actor. It is Aasin’s debut. She plays a practical girl who knows what she wants in life. Shyam and Pooja manage to do their part well. Music by Harris Jeyaraj is effervescent.

Other: To hear songs from this tamil movie click here.
For movie gallery click here.
For movie trailer click here.

Verdict: Ullam Ketkume is so-so.