Kajol plays a raging angel

After a not-so-supportive response among the film critics in Tamil Nadu, the Dhanush-starrer ‘VIP 2’ got released last Friday, hoping to capitalise on the festive mood. Here too as initial reports reveal the Vijay Devarakonda starrer ‘Arjun Reddy’ being the clear winner, pipping both the Tamil dubs, which includes the Ajit Kumar actioner ‘Vivekam’, one wonders how Kajol was being propped up as the film’s USP.

Firstly, in the sequel, Dhanush seemed to be keen on taking his unemployed engineer image on to the next level by showing himself as a married family man, with flashback scenes from the first release once a while. His approach in making the second one stand out as an independent film could not satisfy the audience totally, who were looking for some youth-centric action, rather than a measured tone which he is shown to adopt, dealing with his adversaries, especially the Hindi import Kajol.

Returning to southern cinema after two decades, Kajol who has had a disastrous reception earlier too with her 2016 film ‘Dilwale’ alongside Shahrukh Khan plays a role which makes one strongly reminiscent of the late ‘80s strong woman characters like Vanisri in Chiranjeevi films (Athaki Yamudu, Ammayiki Mogudu). Her daredevil approach and arrogance, strongly confined to shadow-boxing kind of a range till the hero gives a counterpunch is only to elevate the protagonist and his machismo, more than anything else.

Poorly written and shown more as a reactive character, Kajol is confined to being nothing more than an ineffective counterfoil, the standard treatment reserved for independent women characters in our kind of cinema. Though shown as powerful, controlling a successful real estate empire, she is limited to being obsessed about the hero and how to get him under her thumb.