Vellithira Malayalam Movie

Feature Film | 2003
Critics:
Jul 8, 2003 By K. T. Thomas


Raj (Prithviraj), who imitates Rajnikanth and calls himself Styleraj, comes to a remote village Kaavundikallu along with his two friends with a mobile projector as part of a touring talkie company. They set up a shed and start showing a film that has been made by putting together scenes from different films of Rajnikanth. There they get acquainted with many characters- the mill-owner Pillai (Oduvil Unnikrishnan) and his daughter Pushpam (Kalpana) from whom they get the power supply, the Panchayath president (Cochin Haneefa) who unnecessarily interferes in their matters but gives in to bribery, the theatre-owner Jose (Jagathy Sreekumar) who is bent upon driving away Raj and his group. Later, a young girl Thaththa (Navya Nair) makes her way into the heart of young Raj. Raj and Thaththa both begin to love each other, but Thaththa's brother Vasu (Kalabhavan Mani), who is a blacksmith cannot tolerate this affair. And above all, Raj has a dark secret concerning his past, which when brought to light, changes things completely.


After a weeks of the release the climax has been trimmed for 7 minutes to make it more appealing. The movie should have been much better if Bhadran had spend a little more care in the story. The film was made to showcase a new action hero but there is no peg to hang the story. Pritviraj has to improve on his dialogue delivery while Navya Nair lacks glamour, the essential ingredient in such kind of roles. Kalabhavan Mani excells and Kavya Madhavan shines in the cameo. Among the others in the cast, Cochin Haneefa, Jagathy Sreekumar, Oduvil Unnikrishnan, Kalpana, Sudheesh (as Raj's assistant) Indrans (as the hotel-owner) etc. do their respective roles well. Songs penned by Kaithapram and Shibu Chakravarthy and tuned by debutante Alphonse Joseph are fast paced and catchy. The song 'Pachcha maanga, pachcha maanga'... become a craze while 'Kudamulla kadavil'... and Nee manimukilaadakal...' also are catchy. "Vellithira" is technically excellent like any other Bhadran movie with cinematography by S.Kumar and art-direction by Meesha Madhavan fame Joseph Nellickal. Slick editing by Renjan Abraham is the highlight of Vellithira.


On the whole "Vellithira" is just another average movie.

K. T. Thomas

   

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