Naai Sekhar (2022)

Note: Expectedly dull and dumb, but worth for Anandharaj’s hillarious turn as frustrated baddy. Also, the end song, an apt rap by Vadivelu himself, with dance choreographed by Prabhu Deva.

The film begins by thanking meme creators. There’s a necessity for that. Vadivelu has been making comebacks like burnout rock stars surviving on nostalgia and “Best Of” collection sales.

Vadivelu is now on second lease (pun…see movie titles) of his career comeback. The first time after he ran out of favour with cinema audience, the repeated showcasing of his earlier comedy scenes found new batch of audience and he made a film being the lead.

Then, it’s the memes…if you have social media friends who do watch Tamil films, you can’t run away from those memes with Vadivelu in it.

Be as it may, Vadivelu needs good writers. After his split from his writing partner Singgamuthu, his art (whatever it is) suffered so much so that  he couldn’t even compete with the lesser comics now filling his market stall.

The industry that’s prone to self congratulations at the drop of a hat, with almost a century of experience behind it is bereft of good scriptwriters, let alone ones who could deal with comedy. The last time there was a good full length comedy feature was 23am Pulikesi which benefited from a very good original source (cartoon strip in magazine). 

It has not been so since in few Vadivelu starrers.

With a limited comic talent Vadivelu relied heavily on slapsticks and self deprecation for laughs, while occasionally dishing out able dramatic performances. But his bag of trick is limited, and a comics expiry date on big screen is just as limited.

Here's another opportunity to make use of Vadivelu by the filmmakers and Vadivelu himself to tap on the fans still remembering him through the incessant (often unfunny) memes.

But the film is only slightly funnier than the crass soapwater shit being passed off as comedy on TV and social media. It didn’t even push Vadivelu into a newer direction which 24am Pulikesi did.

Those still nostalgic about the “great era” would sit through this out of respect and in hope that there’ll be some sort of redemption somewhere. Otherwise the film is a sketch piece but stretched a bit too far.

Also you know shit is not working when you hafta insert that Goundamani/Senthil Karagattakaran theme. In a Vadivelu flick. There’s hardly an originally hilarious moment, just recaps, recalls from his earlier flicks.

Still, the solace comes in form of the flick’s baddy Anandharaj. His desperation, frustrations especially with his inept henchmen who later has to adjust to them who has to do regular jobs to support themselves. That by itself would have been a wonderful subject to explore with Anandharaj himself as big time gangster dealing with labour issues, and latter's health after his bits get shot. He’s the funniest here.

But they’ll stretch that thin too. Sad that Vadivelu’s comeback pitch keeps fizzling out. Time for him to take a bow or continue with character roles. He’s better as a second lead at least.

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