Varisu review: Predictable and Mushy

VARISU

Producer: Dil Raju

Director: Vamsi Paidipally

Cast: Vijay, Rashmika Mandana, Sharath Kumar, Prabhu, Prakash Raj, Jayasudha, Yogi Babu

Released in theatres.

Rating:

By Jyothi Venkatesh

The story which is as old as the hills revolves around business tycoon Rajendran (Sarath Kumar), looking glum perennially just because his character has terminal illness), who sets out to pit his own sons against each other to ensure that he has the right successor. While the first and second sons, Jai (Srikanth) and Ajay (Shaam), have an eye on the chairman’s chair and blindly act out their father’s whims, the third son, Vijay (Vijay) has a difference of opinion with his methods and is at loggerheads with his father and chooses to stay away.

If you’ve seen 90s family dramas, you already know the youngest son who brings together the rest of the toxic family. Similarly, Vijay rejects his father’s luxurious empire but, after 7 years is called back by his mother to attend a family function.

In an age when women are emancipated, you come across an extremely docile mother who is as submissive and regressive as Jaya Sudha in this film. You need not be a genius to predict what is in store in the film in each frame as the director literally plays to the gallery to the hilt. You even know when a song and dance is going to come and when a fight sequence is going to erupt in the film.

Also read: Kuttey Review: A pulpy but flat caper

In a bid to make the film very mushy and maudlin and manipulate the viewers to shed tears, the director has incorporated several tried and tested scenes which you have seen earlier in films like Bawarchi, Hero No 1, Chekka Chivantha Vaanam etc to project Vijay as the evergreen do gooder hero. However, one wonders why there is a big portrait of late super star Gemini Ganesh in the drawing room when there is no reference to him throughout the film.

As far as performances go, Vijay fits his part perfectly but then he does not move any muscle in his face and only plays to the gallery and in certain scenes also apes Rajinikant to the hilt. The less said about Rashmika the better as she just sashays in the film as pretty filler.

Sharath Kumar does his part perfectly while Jaya Sudha has been wasted. So have Shaam, Shrikant, Prakash Raj and Prabhu etc who have always been formidable actors in the past. Yogi Babu who is the current flavour of comedy does what he is expected to- tickle the audiences with his comic bone.