Aanmai Thavarael Tamil Movie
Peppy music is played during the entry of the heroine, Yamuna (Shruthi), to show her zest for life. As soon as that is established, you hear thunder. That's a warning. The hero of the film, Vetri (Dhruv), blurts out to his friends at a drinking session, that he fell in love with Yamuna when he was seven years old and when she was a newborn baby. I cringed in my seat. Anyway, I'll get on with it. Yamuna and Vetri work night shifts. The only time that they have with each other is after work, two hours before the break of dawn, when human traffickers are lurking around. It's only a matter of time, before Yamuna gets kidnapped. Ironic as it may be, it happens when she's video-recording him on her phone. Incidentally, The phone falls down and manages to record her being abducted into a van as well. LOL. Hence, starts Vetri's quest to find his loved one.
The film weighs more on story than on storytelling. Yet, the story is highly erroneous. There's a point of view shot of the footage found on the phone that she dropped, and the van's number plate is very clear. Sure, the number plates are being changed regularly but still, why don't the police pick up on that? That could've cut the film short.
The traffickers are certified by a police inspector, as professional but they make it a point to leave evidence (be it a cell phone with footage of the kidnapping or the luggage of the victims) and give the captives at least an opportunity to use their cell phones.
Vetri's search goes on until he realizes that something has to be done differently and pays a visit to Charles Antony (Sampath Raj), an ex-cop who spends his time polishing his gun in the lawn. The film conveniently shifts focus from the missing girl, her helpless loved ones to Charles Antony's iconicity.
Antony and Vetri arm-twist a Pimp into giving details that might lead to Yamuna just so that they could get into a car (with dysfunctional seatbelts) that explodes right before the intermission. A little honesty would be appreciated. Vetri jumps out and Antony, whom we see blown to pieces, returns with neither a scratch nor the time for an explanation. Good move, we don't have the time to listen to one. It is nice to see a character empathize with the audience for a change.
The captives react to the situation by crying and hugging each other, that is, when they're not drawing their boyfriends or debating with the captors on the morality of what they're doing (eventually reaching the conclusion that being born without the Y chromosome was the mistake). When the captives are pushed around, slapped, stripped or raped, the music that's been played in the background seems to glorify what's being done. I doubt the people involved with the film had these intentions but that's how it has turned out.
In Vetri's search for Yamuna, there're several instances where he gets very close to finding the van in which Yamuna is being trafficked but then misses it. Director D. Kuzlanthai Velappan thinks he's playing with the audience when he's doing no more than pissing them off. As ridiculous as it sounds, circumstances have Vetri enter a whore auction with the hopes of buying Yamuna back.
Except for those valuable ten minutes of investigation and interrogation, it's a dumb film. However, it is a good seminar on the flesh trade. Unless you intend to be a part of it in any way, I don't recommend the film.
Aanmai Thavarael is an overlong, over scored vapid lackluster that has nothing to do with you once you're out of the theatre.
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