Bogan Review
Star Cast : Jayam Ravi, Arvind Swamy, Hansika Motwani
Director : Lakshman
The story begins with Vikram (Jayam Ravi), a dare devil Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), taking on the goons with his colleagues, Sathya (Varun), Prasad (Nagendra Prasad) and Akshara (Akshara Gowda). Vikram’s family fixes his marriage with Mahalakshmi or Maha (Hansika), whom he meets on a road drunk, to avoid getting married to an unknown person. When she realizes how good Vikram is, she agrees for the marriage.
Their engagement takes place. At the same time, the film introduces Aditya (Arvind Swami), who is having a whale of a life with foreign girls and drinks for company. Aditya uses his special power and at first he mesmerizes a jewelry shop manager and loots the MONEY from the shop and then mesmerizes Vikram’s father (‘Aadukalam’ Naren), who is working as a Bank Manager and loots the money from the bank, where he works.
The story begins with Vikram (Jayam Ravi), a dare devil Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), taking on the goons with his colleagues, Sathya (Varun), Prasad (Nagendra Prasad) and Akshara (Akshara Gowda). Vikram’s family fixes his marriage with Mahalakshmi or Maha (Hansika), whom he meets on a road drunk, to avoid getting married to an unknown person. When she realizes how good Vikram is, she agrees for the marriage.
Their engagement takes place. At the same time, the film introduces Aditya (Arvind Swami), who is having a whale of a life with foreign girls and drinks for company. Aditya uses his special power and at first he mesmerizes a jewelry shop manager and loots the MONEY from the shop and then mesmerizes Vikram’s father (‘Aadukalam’ Naren), who is working as a Bank Manager and loots the money from the bank, where he works.
Vikram’s father gets arrested and he is unable to do anything. To rescue his father, Vikram starts investigating the way the money was stolen from both the places and finds out they were all done by Aditya, who has become rich in the last six months through dubious means.
To find out the truth, Vikram develops friendship with Aditya and with the help of his colleagues, traces where Aditya has kept all the MONEY and then arrests him. In the interrogation room, Aditya behaves in a peculiar manner, without giving any clue to Vikram on how he went about achieving these robberies. He predicts that Prasad will be killed in ten minutes. And within ten minutes, Sathya ends up killing Prasad before Vikram in the office canteen. Vikram could not understand how this was achieved by Aditya and rushes to the interrogation room to find out from Aditya using force.
At the same time, Chezhiyan (Nasser), an archeological professor comes to meet the Commissioner Rajkumar (Ponvannan) and tells him that Aditya was working as his assistant at Madurai and during an excavation, Aditya stumbled upon the writings of a Sidha (Yogi) on a leaf and then vanished. He informs the Commissioner that Aditya is dangerous with the powers acquired from ancient-leaf. Before the Commissioner could inform Vikram, things change in the interrogation room.
If A.R. Murugadoss’s Ezham Arivu had ‘Nokku Varmam’ (hypnotism), it is ‘soul exchanging places’ using Sidha Varmam. Aditya, who learnt this art of exchanging his soul through the ancient writing, ends up achieving all his plans but the noble soul of Vikram thwarts his plans at the end.
The film belongs to Arvind Swamy who dominates as Aditya from the beginning to end. His mannerisms, style and casual attitude gives credibility to the character and he seems to be enjoying his role every minute. After Thani Oruvan, Bogan is his career best. Even when Jayam Ravi acts with Arvind Swamy’s soul, the impact of Arvind Swamy can be felt in those scenes.
Jayam Ravi as Vikram and then with Aditya’s soul in him, delivers a fine performance. He matches the show stealer Arvind Swamy in many scenes. His romantic scenes with Hansika are refreshing and their comfort level can be felt in those scenes. Hansika has a strong role in the film. As a drunkard, she was convincing in the initial scenes. Once the ‘soul exchange takes place’ how she manages Aditya in Vikram’s body were entertaining.
Nasser, Ponvannan, Naren, Varun, Nagendra Prasad and Akshara Gowda are all convincing in their respective roles. The film’s highlight is cinematography by Soundararajan, who has presented RICHvisuals throughout the film. The locations, lighting and grandeur of the film stand out due to his excellent cinematography. Editing by Anthony is crisp in the first half. However, in the second half, the editing could have been sharper to make the film more impactful. D. Imman scores very well in the background music, which adds to the momentum of the film. Out of the five songs, ‘Damaalu Dumeelu…’ and ‘Senthoora…’ and ‘Vaarai nee vaarai…’ stand out. Imman is certainly a big plus to this film.
After Romeo Juliet, Director Laxman proves that he is a director with substance and can make good commercial entertainers. His grip over the screenplay and presentation is strongly established in this film. Bogan is his breakthrough film and he is here to stay as a filmmaker.
Overall, Bogan is worthy of a watch for its new theme, RICH visuals and music, fantastic performances by Jayam Ravi and Arvind Swamy and fine making by Laxman. Go out and enjoy in theatres.
