He is touted as the most successful director of his times with seven consecutive super hits and is only hotter now with The Boss extracting India’s highest paid actor and music director. In recent years, there has been no parallel to Shankar’s success scales. Presto, here comes a new challenge. It is from the man himself in the avatar as producer. S Pictures had just hit a hot hatrick with Muthalvan, Kaadhal and Imsai Arasan 23 Pulikesi. Here comes Veyil to make it as hot as(I leave it to you to fill any names – Mallika Sherawat for example). With Veyil, the heat is on between Director Shankar and Producer Shankar. Pray let it be so for the good of Tamil Cinema.
Some months ago Shankar said his decision to produce Veyil.That was enough to create the necessary vibes for Veyil. With unusual star cast of Pasupathy and Bharath, photo shoots establishing a cinematic backdrop, GV Prakash’s refreshing tunes and a trailor with the caption 1Man Cursed, 1Man Blessed, the vibes were to increase. Veyil, indeed became a hot commodity and took a star opening. That speaks for the repute of Shankar as a producer and the growing intelligence of Tamil cinemagoers. Veyil starts with the brilliance of Mathi’s cinematography that captures a stormy night contrary to the movie’s title.
The violent start makes you sit up and take notice – a task which you do till the end titles. Thereafter the character Murugesan starts his narration from his childhood. Vasanthabalan flawlessly captures the minds and moods of children growing near Virudhunagar. The song Veyilodu Vilayadu that covers the childhood days (the children have enacted wonderfully) of the hero was an absolute stunner. The lyrics were top class. Matching to them were GV Prakash’s hummable tune, amazing orchestration and choice of Jassie Gift and Karthik to create a variation. Vasantha Balan and take the song to greater heights with the picturisation.
The song in itself was worth more than the ticket. Murugesan narrates (with the deft dialogues of Vasanthabalan) how he was bitten by the cinema bug, how his father caught him red handed, how he got a punishment as hot as the midday Virudhunagar sun, how he was forced to run away from home and how he ran into the cinema bug again and how he finally became an operator in a theatre. In the frames of childhood, the natural affection of Murgesan with his younger brother are shown through subtle scenes. This justifies his narration of his brother’s story in tandem. The mutual affection shared by them is shown in flashes. After the cinema bug, it is Murugesan’s turn to get affected by the love bug with Thangam (debutant Priyanka gives a good account of herself).
Suddenly all hell breaks loose and Pasupathy loses the only two things he loved in life – his love and his job. Crestfallen by this unexpected double failure, Murugesan traces his way back to the villages. For a man who has been affected by the heat of life, life only gets hotter(in the hot suburbs) as his father is in no mood to forgive him. At his wit’s end and his senses’ end, he meets his brother by chance. The union of the brothers is touchingly recorded by Vasanthabalan and GV Prakash amazes one and all in his rerecording, There is no stopping Kathir - Murugesan’s brother. While his mother(surprise – I knew her as a singer) and Kathir pour their affections on Murugesan, the father( a man of steel – Kumar is his name – great performance) and his sisters are nowhere happy to have him. Pasupathy is not able to find a business of his own either. He only has his childhood friend Pandi(an unbelievable portrayal by Shreya Reddy) as a source of solace. On the other hand, Kathir is successful in life and family.
However his business growth enrages the established players. Once again this is a well handed sub plot by Vasantha Balan. He portrays the sheer reality of how people handle competition down south even in this age of LPG(Liberalisation, Privitisation and Globalisation). The heat of life reaches mid summer for Murugesan as he is wrongly alleged of stealing his sister’s jewels. But even as the truth dawns, the chap gets melted down. He is all ready to leave the place. Kathir busy with his ad company and Priya (Bhavana finally gets a good role in Tamil) is totally unaware of the happenings. Once he comes to know of it, he frantically searches his brother. This lapse in concentration provides the perfect platform for his business enemy to seek revenge. Kathir is stabbed and on the brink of his final moments spots his brother about to move out of the town. He risks his life to plead with his brother to stay along.
Once he sees his brother in bloodsheds, the normally silent Murugesan’s blood boils in total heat. He creates a massacre of sorts murdering all men behind his brother’s death. The narrative ceases and Murugesan finally gets revenge. And as you expect in cinema, he dies, his brother lives and his family pour affections in him. A man deemed a failure in life wins hearts (most importantly his father) who is not able to come out of his son’s death even after a year. That’s a man’s life in heat – Veyil. (Continued in Comments Section).