Movie: Valimai
Rating: 1.5/5
Banner: Ramalakshmi Cine Creations
Cast: Ajith Kumar, Huma Quresh, KartikeyaGummakonda, Bani and others
Music: Ghibran, Yuvan Shankar Raja
Director of Photography: Nirav Shah
Editor: Vijay Velukutty
Producer: Boney Kapoor
Written and Directed by: H Vinoth
Release Date: Feb 24, 2022
Ajith starrer “Valimai” has been a trending topic on social media for nearly two years. The film’s trailer and promos have further added to the hype. The Telugu dubbed version of the Tamil actioner also hit the theaters today.
Let’s analyze.
Story:
Arjun (Ajith) is a sincere cop with values. He doesn’t see chain snatching as a petty case. The Vizag police commissioner has been waiting for such an officer.
When Arjun presents his theory that the series of chain snatching cases and biking gang activities are linked to a drug syndicate, the commissioner asks him to lead the mission.
He quickly zeroes in on the main person behind this gang (Kartikeya). But the chief of the gang has developed a network that is not easy to break in.
How will Arjun save the city and his family that somehow gets dragged into the case?
Artistes’ Performances:
Ajith Kumar flaunts style and swag, he is in his element here playing the police officer’s role. He does only two things in the film – action stunts and sentiment. There is no romantic pair for him.
Huma Qureshi plays his colleague. Our Telugu actor Kartikeya Gummakonda has played the villain’s role. He has the body to play the baddie, but he doesn’t get much chance to exhibit his acting skills. His character doesn’t have a proper graph.
Technical Excellence:
The action stunts are the main highlight. The film excels in the action department and technical aspects.
A couple of bike chasing sequences and a lengthy bus chase are filmed brilliantly with coordination between the cameraman, action choreographer, and editor. But music is not in the same league. Neither song nor background score is effective.
Highlights:
Stylish Action stunts
Beginning portion
Drawback:
Routine and formulaic narrative
Lengthy action episodes
Lack of romance and entertainment
Tacky sentiment
Dragging on
No strong villain
Analysis
The plotline of “Valimai” is simple: A police officer hunts down a group of outlaw biker gangs after they are involved in a series of crime incidents.
But it is presented quite differently in the initial stage. Ajith enters the scene only after fifteen minutes of the start.
Before that, the director reveals how masked biker gang is supplying drugs and killing people, and supplying drugs by using sophisticated methods: Cracking QR codes from a painting on the wall, buying bikes on a portal, and dumping them in a quarry after the completion of the criminal activity, using dark web technology. This whole 15 minutes of the stretch is narrated engagingly.
Though the family scenes involving Ajith Kumar and the mandatory introduction song slows the pace initially, it gets back to its interesting setup soon.
Ajith using the ‘reverse’ method to find the villain Kartikeya is quite absorbing. The pre-interval bike chase is another highlight. By and large, the first half of the film is engaging despite the familiar setup.
But it goes completely out of hands after Ajith Kumar nabbing the villain. As there is not much story to drive the film from this point, the director shifts his focus to the family sentiments.
To give a commercial touch, he may have a chance to work on the romantic thread, but the director skipped it and dragged on mother-brother sentiment. The final portions look contrived and bore us to death.
The sentiment angle has diluted the core action drama and turned it into another routine ‘Tamil sentiment masala’. Plus, the logic goes for a toss at many places. There is a command control in the police headquarters that can find out any answer by clicking on keyboards.
The police officer meets in a glass cubicle that looks like a Hollywood set rather than a real police commissionerate. The makers have tried to present the action drama in a glossy manner, but the setup is unrealistic.
If bike gangs are moving in such a manner on the city roads, what are traffic constables doing? In any Indian city, a traffic constable would stop if even one biker went at 100 KM speed with so much noise. But here in the film, biker gangs regularly move on roads together as if they own the roads.
Ajith knows all about crime activities in the city, but he doesn’t know that one of his family members chose the wrong path.
Kartikeya’s villain character is so weak. Sometimes we wonder why Ajith is making so much fuss for this feeble villain. Their cat and mouse game is not exciting either. Their face-off sequence has not created any value.
With nearly three-hour running time and never-ending stunts, “Valimai” tests the patience towards the end. All in all, despite style and sass, and a couple of high-octane action scenes, “Valimai” doesn’t excite us at all, making it a boring watch.
Bottom line: Balimai!