Vel - old ale in new case

The usual twins separated at birth story comes back to life again. And since it has been a trend in the last decade or so to make every story in the commercial sense, this takes that route too. Moreover, a theme like this which has been exploited by most film directors in India would never even get a satisfactory comment from the masses if there wasn't any spice.

Vel is director Hari's yet another mass movie after Saami, Arul etc. In this movie, he has chosen to Surya to play the dual role.

Sharanya (remember the movie Nayagan) plays Surya's mom in this movie. She is the unfortunate mom who loses one of her twin sons. Right from the beginning of the movie till the end, all Sharanya does is whining and crying about the lost son. Nowadays, she has got such a hopeless voice. Her role is a total waste of time.

Its funny to see how one of the twins is kidnapped by a thief, just for the sake of jewelery. All the thief could have done is taken off the gold jewels because the child was already sleeping. He didn't have to take it all the way to some place, remove the jewels and leave the child there.

Anyway, we need some basis to begin the story. Two people grow up in different settings - obviously one in the city and other in the village.

Surya as Vel in the village is the angry young man. The introductory scene where he delivers the punch dialogs is extremely funny. Punch dialogs have become so typical with actors. Every hero has to have a punch dialog in the beginning of the movie and that has to reach the masses. But what are punch dialogs - rhyming expressions that make no sense.



Surya in the city as Vasu is the intelligent and smart young man. Unfortunately, he is stuck with Sharanya as the mom and I really can't imagine how he withstood her torturous and dragging dialogs. For god's sake, they are showing a mom, 25 yrs after losing her child and she is still crying. She cries even when she sees a orphan on the road. My god! why didn't they have a better role for her.

Asin is simple and neat. She has put on very little fat but since its showing at the right places, she looks very beautiful. For once the director decided not to use extra make-up on Asin. So, when you see her on screen, you get the feeling that you are probably seeing a just-another-girl character. Very plain but attractive.

So, we know that the story is all about how the twins are going to meet and what's going to happen after that. Thankfully, the director did not have another female lead in the movie. Then we'll need more songs and romanctic pursuits.

Vadivel is best in his comedy. He is part of the village crowd and we know for a fact that Vadivel does better village comedy than city stuff. His accent is best suited for a village setting. The sequence where a number of incidents happen only because of a crow's dropping calls for riotous laughter.

Songs are okay. These are not numbers that get you tapping your foot. They just blend with the storyline. Asin wears a reading glass in one of the songs and she looks really cute. That's something worth mentioning I guess. "Ottraikkannaala" and "Kovakkara Kiliye" - maybe you'll want to hear to these songs again.

Overall rating - not bad. could have been better. sentiment killer.