Vamanan – Polished Remake of ‘Following’

Banner: Dream Valley Corporation
Production: Ravendran
Direction: Ahmed
Star-casts: Jai, Priya, Lakshmi Rai, Raghuman, Sampath, Santhanam, Oorvasi and many others.
Music: Yuvan Shankar Raja

Well much ahead for the first 15mins of this film, I felt so fascinated with the gripping start of tale. A Political murder and a new-fangled camera attached to mini-chopper capturing those shots.

Indeed, I was so enthralled with the very stylish making. But sooner, on the very next moments I had to regret for feeling so-high about Ahmed. Know what? He has so cleverly copycatted the not-so famous Hollywood film ‘Following’ directed by Christopher Nolan. Of course, Christopher Nolan has been a great inspirer for many filmmakers in our Kollywood. Even Murugadoss had polished his ‘Mementoes’ and turned it into Ghajini.

Anand (Jai) with the dreams of becoming a great actor comes to Chennai and dwells in his friend’s place (Santhanam). He falls in love with Divya as he meets her over the railway station and with his friend’s advice of imitating the natural mannerisms of strangers; Anand keeps following a stylish man (Raghuman). Cut to a different track, Vinod an ad filmmaker uses a new-modeled mini-helicopter that works on remote control that has camera attached. Accidentally, the control is lost and camera flies over to a altitude capturing the murder of well-renowned politician (Delhi Ganesh) by Anbu (Sampath).

Vinod is murdered by Anbu’s henchmen and Actress Pooja (Lakshmi Rai) tends to be the next victim. Anand becomes so friendly with Raghuman and he’s none other than an unique burglar who loves breaking into the people’s house and get to know about their privacy. But things turn to be topsy-turvy for Anand when he’s accused of murdering Pooja.

Jai has matured a lot on his performance and has gone ahead in places with the instructions of Ahmad. Priya Anand doesn’t get much scope to showcase her potentials while Lakshmi Rai has done a good job. Raghuman again as a baddie steals the show and Santhanam adds to the humor quotients. His encounters with Oorvasi are mind-boggling and sense-of-timing is unbeatable. Sampath and Thalaivasal Vijay as usual have done justice to their roles.

Ahmad as mentioned earlier has carefully inherited the narration of ‘Following’ and tried to implement some smart moves during the penultimate sequences.

Musical score by Yuvan is middling and background score offers more to the pace of screenplay. Aravind Krishna’s glossy shots are quite impressive.

‘Vamanan’ is a film you can watch if you aren’t aware about ‘Following’ and it’s a good start by Ahmed.

Verdict: Once and not more than that.

Richard Mahesh

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