Kuruvi - Review

The dream team of Gilli returns after a 4 year long gap, but this time with a poor, sick Kuruvi! Dharani fails to attract the viewers with his immature, illogical and unimpressive script and narration. First time, I have seen, the ardent fans of Vijay cursing their matinee idol for choosing a loose script and repeated dance numbers throughout the film.

No doubt, the film lacks a basic story and became a big test for ones patience for almost three long hours. It lacks any novelty and reminds us the same old stories of mass masala released in the late 70's.

The first half has the shades of Mask of Zorro (The heroine also mentioned the same in a scene!) when the lead pair meets and romances and post interval it looks like some Balakrishna starred third rated Telugu films and Prabhas's Chatrapati.

The idiotic heroism starts right from the first scene of the movie. Our hero wins a national car championship with an old and condemned car against the well maintained new race cars. After this win, the glam girl accompanied with the loser of the race dances with our hero for an item number!

It seems like a real comedy that a well trained gang leader can not shoot the Kuruvi like ordinary boy straightly in many scenes. Our hero always escapes from bullets pouring from the baddies guns!

You know how our hero destroys one of the villains in the film? Once the villain uses a stone to hurt our heroe's father's hand worse. That time the father swears that his son will come and destroy all the baddies one day. After many years, the hero kills the same villain with the same stone (sentiment?!).

Not a joke or satirical comment on this first attempt of Chief Minister's grandson Udhayanidhi Stalin, pathetically this is the main plot of Kuruvi.

Vel alias Vetrivel alias Kuruvi (Vijay) is a happy go-lucky young man, who is running his father's old industry and a part time car racer. He lives near Cooum in an old house attached to his old factory and with his father's three old wives including his mother and sisters! His father Singamuthu (Manivannan) a quarry worker in Cuddappa has captivated under baddies like Suman, Ashish Vidyarti&Co.

After the first intro song of the hero, one of his father's creditors tries to vacate Vetrivel and his family. To settle his amount, Vel flies to Malaysia as a Kuruvi (like courier) with a dishonoured cheque given by his father's debtor, and traced out him, who is none other than Suman. After a fierce fight with him, Vijay takes away a rare diamond of Suman and also steals his sister's (Trisha) heart and returns to Chennai.

The rest of the film is how Kuruvi goes to Cuddappa and discovers a slave camp run by Suman and his partner Ashish Vidyarthi at the rock land and also finds his long lost father. Kuruvi turns into a 'roaring lion' and single handedly takes on the mining mafia and finally destroys them.

It is a big surprise how Vijay and director Dharani choose this loose script for a VVIP producer like Udhayanithi, who enters in to the tinsel world for the first time.

Almost all the scenes in the film are unbelievable larger than life hero elements and the action scenes are the real mockery of the three hours long show. In a scene, Vijay dives from a 200 ft high building and wings in the air for another 200 meter to catch the metro train!

In another scene, he breaks a strong tree by just a kick. Above all, he is drowned into the deep part of earth in a lift collapse but comes alive from other part of the earth (Cooum) freshly! In other words, it looks like a third rated Telugu mass masala of the whole.

Vijay, as a mass hero, has done his job well as what the director instructed. But it seems he is bored while doing such unbelievable but often beaten versions of such masala flicks. This time the chemistry does not work out well between the lead pair Vijay-Trisha. Suman and Ashish Vidyarti are wasted for meaningless roles.

Thaen Thaen… is the only melody in the film, which attracts the viewers. Other numbers and the way the director picturised are irritating.

If you are looking for a tight, razor-sharp action thriller like Gilli, you have got the wrong film. But of course, if Kuruvi is salvaged to some extent, it's thanks to Vijay's irresistible screen presence and his spontaneous approach to the character.

Tamil Film Industry and its viewer's taste improve a lot in recent days and directors like Dharani should mind the same while making a film like Kuruvi.

Verdict: Test for your patience!

Credits:

Cast: Vijay, Trisha, Saranya, Suman, Ashish Vidyarthi, Vivek and Manivannan

Camera: Gopinath

Music: Vidyasagar

Story-Screenplay-Direction: Dharani

Producer: Udayanithi Stalin.