7.7
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Movie: Vanayudham
Cast: Kishore, Arjun, Jayapal, Ravi Kale, Suresh Oberoi, Lakshmi Rai
Direction: A M R Ramesh
Music: Sandeep Chowta
Producer: AMR Ramesh,Jagadeesh ,V Srinivas
Banner: Akshaya Creations
Genre: Drama
Release Date: 14 Feb 2013
Cast: Kishore, Arjun, Jayapal, Ravi Kale, Suresh Oberoi, Lakshmi Rai
Direction: A M R Ramesh
Music: Sandeep Chowta
Producer: AMR Ramesh,Jagadeesh ,V Srinivas
Banner: Akshaya Creations
Genre: Drama
Release Date: 14 Feb 2013
Vana Yudham (2013)
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6.8
(242 votes)
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It’s not easy to recreate a fitting saga drawn out of real life incidents of a controversial story, but filmmaker AMR Ramesh does his best to make this biopic of India’s most wanted dacoit Veerappan appear plausible. What could have been a pulsating thriller of sorts, is jeopardised due to a screenplay that fails to evoke interest and keep the audiences hooked. That said, one can’t ignore this film as it successfully brings forth crucial events from the life of the late poacher-turned-dacoit.
Kishore has been roped in for the role of the mustached smuggler. Verappan’s early life is told in detail in the narrative.
Story
Vana Yuddham is a biopic about the last days of forest brigand Veerappan.
In little over two hours, ‘Vana Yuddham’ presents us events from the lives of Veerappan; starting from the initial days as a poacher to his last days as the most feared dacoit in the country. In his regime in the dense forests bordering three southern states – Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, for nearly three decades, he was an undisputed ruler and all those who tried to stop him, were put to sleep.
The story starts with childhood days of Veerappan (Kishore) and killing of animals and smuggling. Then comes the story of kidnapping Kannada super star Rajkumar and releasing him after 102 days. By this incident Tamilnadu Chief Minister appoints a special officer Vijayakumar IPS (Arjun) as the STF chief to kill Veerappan and his gang. They will go for a master plan to kill Veerappan.
The entire first half brings to the fore the rise of the dacoit and the number of people and elephants he killed. The second half throws light on ‘Operation Cocoon’, headed by IPS officer Vijay Kumar (Arjun), who, with the help of Karnataka Special Task Force (STF), watched the movements of their target for months and finally gunned him down.
Vana Yudham (2013),
The second half scores over its predecessor because it carries some amount of suspense throughout. It makes you wait for the moment when you breathe a sigh of relief, whereas the first half was more or less like a docu-drama focusing only on certain important dates from Veerappan’s life. It didn’t excite the audience as much as a biopic should have done.
Kishore as Veerappan was brilliant and the ease with which he portrays the mannerisms of the real character is a treat to watch. You can’t deny the amount of hard work that he has put in to make his role appear flawless. To see Arjun don the role of a policeman is not new for Tamil audiences, yet he leaves an impact.
Originally made as Kannada-Tamil bilingual, ‘Vana Yuddham’ suffers due to bad dubbing, which turns irksome after a point of time. Some muted and cut scenes pave way to badly edited shots.
Sandeep Chowta’s music is partly fitting, while the background score is mostly loud.
AMR Ramesh had unexplored grounds of sensitive issue through his ‘Kuppi’, but what fails him from reaching to match at least half thelevel of his previous movie. Maybe, certain restrictions over showing the reality or he didn’t have a proper research done.
What’s disappointing with this film is that the characters turn out to be bleak in spite of having great actors. Kishore as Veerappan spells his best with an incredible performance. Apparently, same credits go to Action King Arjun. Although, Ramesh has managed to make modifications over his character with the real life reflections, his screen presence is commendable. Sampath on his part does justice to the character and National award winner Jayabalan of ‘Aadukalam’ fame sleepwalks through his role as an ex-military with gray shade personality. Vijayalakshmi doesn’t get a proper footage in the film and this very reason becomes the terrible disappointment to the audiences.
With the film completely shot amidst of forest, the cinematography by Vijay Milton stands out brilliantly in every frame, but the background score and discontinuities in editing turned out to be a minus.
On a final note, the film fails to keep us intact due to lots of illogical elements. If AMR Ramesh had faced so much of pressures to reduce the reality element, he could have better avoided picking up this theme for his film. Apart from the good performance of actors and cinematography, there is nothing big to get impressed with this film.
vanayutham is a fantastic treat for the ordience who loves historyyyyyyyyy
can watch it once