Devil of a film

Yaman’ is a strange title for a commercial film, even if it is prefabricated to lionise the hero, end to end. With its English meaning as devil, director Jeeva Shankar mercifully avoids getting into the spooky trap and sticks to a typical political thriller format of a movie.

At the end of the two-and-a- half hour running time, this alone remains its sole saving grace. Of course, there is a desperate justification for the title, which is that the hero survives a poisoning bid of his mother as she commits suicide and hence is the ‘Yaman’ of all he surveys!

Having opened up a new and a welcoming market in Telugu states, hero Vijay Antony has risen phenomenally from his ‘Bichagadu ’days for sure. Whether it qualifies him to behave like a full-fledged commercial icon already is what is the important question here.

Clearly minimalistic in his expressions and variations on screen, our man seems to have overstretched himself in ‘Yaman’. He is seen bashing up the bad elements, does the dancing bit in a solo song and also takes up his original role as a music director (in this venture).

Yet another person who dons a double role is the director, who is also the cinematographer of the movie.

Sticking to a wafer thin story laced with revenge and treachery, from the first to the last scene, the helmsman very successfully keeps the thrill element out of the proceedings entirely.

There is a predictable, mechanical hangover to the scenes as they roll out and there is no edge-of-the-seat moment anywhere. Antony plays a double role, with the father’s role hardly justifying the screen time it occupies.

Bringing back erstwhile hero Thiagarajan as the antagonist, Jeeva Shankar plods on with his hackneyed treatment, which wastes the heroine Miya George’s presence and gives her no space to do anything worthwhile.

Strangely, for the heroine’s role that she is shown to be playing on screen, she is not seen on the sets or doing anything cinematic!

After his first freak hit, Vijay Antony’s ‘Betaludu’ was just about passable when it released a few weeks ago. ‘Yaman’ does not have anything distinguishing to make it a watchable experience, despite it being a festival release.