Vattam Tamil Movie
"Soodhu Kavvum" laid the road for the neo-noir black comedy thrillers. Especially the ones involving kidnapping as the central plot point enjoyed a crazy cult following among the young audiences post-2012. There is a certain template to these kidnap-capers wherein the kidnappers are duds and lack acumen. Gone are the days when a "Pandya" from Kaakha Kaakha menaces the screen with his electrifying presence.
Though such neo-noir kidnapping thrillers are familiar to the audiences, none can come close to "Vattam", directed by Kamalakannan. The movie goes about with its narrative in the most underwhelming and insipid fashion such that each character in the movie forgets their purpose after a certain point.
For instance, Sibi kidnaps Vamsi using Vamsi's car. What starts as a help slowly turns into a kidnap. For Sibi, it is supposed to be a role that has shades of grey. He tries as hard as he can. Unfortunately, his flat expressions do not match his body language, and his languid posture sets him back from achieving anything unique.
The entire episode involving Sibi and Vamshi was lifeless. There was no tension nor there were any interesting lines exchanged between them. The scenes were so lame, that after a certain point, we feel quite normal when the movie starts to test new lows.
The screenplay is one of the most horribly written in recent times. Andrea shows up with her night dress and ends up giving a sermon to Sibi about feminism and what it is to be liberated and how much she has been suppressed. Vamshi ends up being so dumb that he listens to Sibi and goes about eating street food, drinking with strangers, and listening to their aspirations. In the process, he realizes what life is. Wow! That should be enlightening, isn't it??
There is a parallel kidnapping story that involves a bunch of terminated IT employees who plan to take revenge on their employer by kidnapping his differently-abled son. They do so with some dumb sequences. The performance, especially that of Chaithra Reddy, was the worst of the lot.
It's not over yet, Sibi has a backstory. Of course, a love affair. Athulya comes in for attendance. She betrays him for the simple practical reason that she could not live with a guy who cannot make ends meet. That goes into another tangent where Sibi goes into a musing zone.
Overall, it's a mess and is a waste of time to even watch it on OTT. Producer SR Prabhu who has been behind some of the most successful and meaningful films in Tamil cinema should have done due diligence while vetting the script.
Even as I advise you to stay away, for the brave souls out there, this one streams on Hotstar.
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