Vandha Mala Tamil Movie
After making a middling debut in the Arya - Renuka Menon-starrer Kalaabha Kadhalan in 2006, director Igore has come up with Vandha Mela, his second film, which revolves around four freewheeling youngsters who pick up chain snatching to gather funds to set up their own business.
Set in the Chetpet slum area in Chennai, Hitler, Tamizh, Udhayaraj and Prasath are always together and their longstanding friendship is well known in their locality. They work in a local hotel together and get fired by the owner for a petty issue. Distressed with the owner's bossy attitude, the quartet decides to set up their own hotel in the same area to prove a point to the arrogant hotel owner. While they start a small Tiffin shop, they decide to snatch the chains of women going alone on road to collect more money for their hotel business.
But all hell breaks loose when they steal a chain from a woman which has a small letter saying, "Those who save me will get Rs. 2 crores." The quartet decides to embark on a journey to find the woman to know her exact situation to rescue her in order to take hold of the lump sum prize amount Rs. 2 crores. Whether they find the woman or not forms the story.
The loveliest sub-plot of the story involves the romance track between Tamizh and Priyanka, who delivers an effortless performance as the lead lady.
While director Igor manages to explore the brilliantly, he gets good support from Maari Venkatachalam's structured frames that portray the area beautifully during the broad day light and the night time.
The film has some good moments here and there, but it never coheres well on the whole. The directionless first half is aided by the antics of Mahanadhi Shankar who leave the audiences in splits for a while. The second half is snail paced and the predictable narration adds to the frustration as well.
Overall, Vandha Malai is a half-baked attempt in portraying the life of slum-dwelling Chennai youngsters.
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