Kadugu Review
Star Cast : Rajakumaran, Bharath, Radhika Prasidhha, Bharath Seeni, Venkatesh
Director : Vijay Milton
Vijay Milton’s Kadugu clearly conveys that filmmaking is not about grand sets, big names and mammoth budget. All a director should do is to sketch realistic characters, situations and establish a strong emotional connect with the audiences.
The film begins with the righteous yet innocent Puli Vesham artist ‘Puli’ Pandi (Rajakumaran), who feels happy when he helps people around him. He is a born do-gooder and doesn’t expect anybody to reciprocate to his goodness. In one of his Puli Vesham programs, a problem breaks out during which he befriends the area inspector (Venkatesh) and helps him in day-to-day errands. As the inspector gets transferred to a small coastal town Tharangambadi, Puli also accompanies him.
Pandi gets another friend Anirudh (Bharath Seeni), who also a helper in the new police station. People in Tharangambadi have great respect for boxer Nambi (Bharath), the young political leader in the town. When a state minister visits the place, at a function organised by Nambi, he tries to molest a young girl. Nambi who has political ambitions brushes aside the issue and plays it down. However Puli Paandi and a school teacher Ebby (Radhika Prasidhha) bravely fight for her.
Unfortunately, the devastated little girl, who used to consider Nambi as her role model commits suicide. Now it’s up to Paandi to stress the grievous crime of Nambi and gets the justice for the little girl.
Kadugu’s biggest strength is solid characterizations; especially the not so good looking Rajakumaran is beautifully portrayed as a guy with inherent goodness in him. Bharat as the guy with shades of grey is well etched by the director.
The other two interesting characters are Radhika Prasidhha, the teacher who faced similar appalling incident as the little girl in her childhood and Bharath Seeni, who struggles to convey his love and gives her space to the girl.
The scene where the old woman, who always compels Bharath to eat, falls down after knowing the wicked side of her grandson, saying that all these days, the food she made has only gone waste is nothing but a solid example of smart writing!
Though Kadugu will definitely connect well with the audiences, we wish director Vijay Milton had been a little more subtle . For instance, Rajakumaran’s dialogues in the second half sounds over the top and had the director underplayed such sequences, the film would have been much better. Also, the film has lip-sync issues in many scenes and the ‘Facebook’ comedy sequences too appears little odd considering the realistic treatment.
Nevertheless, one can oversee all these minor flaws and certainly declare Kadugu is a solid comeback from Vijay Milton. The last 15 minutes of the 115 minutes film is its highlight.
