Kollywood musician turned actor Vijay Antony’s new film, Kodiyil Oruvan had a simultaneous release in Telugu as Vijaya Raghavan today. Let’s check how it is.
Story: To crack the Indian civils exam, an IAS aspirant named Vijaya Raghavan’s(Vijay Anthony) lands in Hyderabad. Living in a small colony, Vijaya Raghavan starts preparing for exams by parallelly giving tutorials for the kids. But a group of local goons, who has political support from the same area corporator stop Vijaya Raghavan from taking the IAS exams. Later, how will Vijaya Raghavan teach a lesson to local goons and their corporator ( role played by KGF fame Garuda Ram)? And becomes the new corporator for the same area? Forms the rest of the story.
Performances: Though Vijay Anthony is not a great actor he somehow manages to impress with his decent acting. His choice of scripts based on burning issues in the society made him close to the general audience and the same has happened with this film also. His journey from an IAS aspirant to the area corporator is filled with multiple emotions and Vijay Anthony impresses with a decent performance. Especially, the mother-son sentiment thread which worked in favour of Vijay Antony in Bichagadu has repeated in this film also. The core emotional bond with the mother-son has been executed in a decent manner in Vijaya Raghavan.
While Garuda Ram as a powerful politician is convincing in his role, the lady, who did the mother role did cent percent justice to her role.
Heroine Aathmika is gorgeous on-screen but her chemistry with Vijay Antony is only restricted to limited scenes. Others actors, who did the supporting roles are apt in their roles.
Technicalities: The cinematography work by NS Udhaya Kumar is a major highlight for the film as he showcased the slum localities and the lifestyle of the people in those areas in an impressive manner. The production design team did a good job in tracking apt locations for the movie.
Editing work by Vijay Antony himself is not up to the mark as he would have chopped off a few lag scenes in the second half to make things more appealing.
Music by Nivas K Prasanna is good as all the songs are good to listen to on the screen and his background score is apt for the film’s genre.
Analysis: Firstly, director Anand Krishnan Should be appreciated for coming up with a political based subject coated mother sentiment. The social message showcased in the film is also impressive and triggers into the audience mind.
Though the political scenes and the mother sentiment episodes showcased in the first half are good, the pace of the film eventually drops in the second half with a few dragged scenes. If Anand Krishnan would have focused on writing a gripping screenplay for the second half proceedings, the output would have been much better.
In one word, Vijaya Raghavan is a political based family drama with mother sentiment as the main USB. If director Anand Krishnan worked on writing a racy screenplay for the key proceedings in the second half the film would have got good applause from the audience.
Verdict: Political drama coated with mother sentiment!