Vaalu (Naughty) - A passable telltale masala!

What’s with this movie’s title? Even for me it has taken almost 3 weeks to write a review after watching this movie… may be it’s time for Simbu to look for a new astrologer to set right his already messed up stars.

In recent times, this movie was in the news for as many wrong reasons as possible and brought about a sort of jinx to Simbu's career by stalling his releases for nearly 3 years. The release dates for this movie were shuffled quite often and it was a common sight to see TR (Simbu’s dad) to unleash a fury of malevolent swears with his typical sonnetic exuberance in front of paparazzis and other journos only to be egged each time by a financier who would eventually have the last laugh. This trend continued until Ilayathalapathy Vijay came forward to support the movie’s release which was indeed a shot in the arm for the project, aiding its subsequent release and TR singing hymns about Vijay at ‘Puli’ audio launch, which was embarrassing even for a common viewer.

I was a wee bit curious to watch this movie as the stir it caused was just too much to comprehend. But at the end it was just another run-of-the-mill Simbu masala with Simbu’s “thala” worships and ‘love sutras’ adorning the most part with some glossy songs and entertaining one-liners from Santhanam. The story is about a guy named Sharp (this is the second inane name that Simbu sports after ‘Osthi’ Velan) wooing a girl named Priya Lakshmi (Hansika-Motwani in yet another role that sensible actresses would trash any given day) against all odds, the most important one being the hurdle posed by Priya’s ‘murai mama’ Anbu (debutant Aditya), a loan shark. At first thoughts one would think, how naive this story can be? But thankfully, the screenplay had some interesting things going for it, especially with Santhanam filling the vacuum in the flawed screenplay that did little in terms of twists or turns.

Another positive side for the movie was that there were literally no dull moments and the screenplay was lit with firecrackers with Simbu’s eclectic screen presence and his combo with Santhaanam and VTV Ganesh seems to have worked once again. However the fight scenes crop up for every 20 minutes and the same guys getting bashed at the hands of Simbu gradually became an eyesore. Simbu and Hansika’s chemistry was fine, but Hansika’s lip sync was no where near to passing muster. The templated family members with Naren playing the father’s role for the upteenth time was surprisingly brought alive.

Music by Thaman was peppy but there was not a single number that struck a chord. May be it was meant to go with the flow and was given a lower priority. Overall, this movie hasn’t got anything special, but manages to pass muster only because of Santhaanam and Simbu’s combination and a decent narrative.

Verdict: Average

Rating: 2.25 / 5