Vishal Krishna’s Finest 3

Vishal  Krishna’s  Best Films

Abhimanyudu(Tamil) :  Information theft is epidemic. Go anywhere. It follows you. It is happening in homes  where husbands are spying on wives’ phone data. It is happening with your Adhaar Card where data is  stolen by anyone  who cares  to.A film, then, on  the power  of  info-theft? Sounds good. And Vishal  Krishan who has lately acquired  a reputation for political activism, sinks into the role of  Karthivaran an army personnel who is uncontrollably angered  by corruption.When  a bank loan goes horribly wrong(the plotting is  so seamless that it goes fluently and  fast  from background information to in-your-face action)  Karthivaran sets  off a trail of animated  pursuit  that leads to an information-mafioso,  Satyamoorthy(Arjun) a  digital devil who wants  to hack into every Indian’s life with the  express purpose  of controlling it.Every individual’s life, that  is.

Abhimanyudu knocks the  socks off the technology racket. Scarily  the  film suggests there  is  nothing  private about  any individual’s  life. We are all sitting ducks to violation  of  supposedly  confidential performance.The film makes telling use of the data-hacking proces. Shot with an eye for  slickness that is never allowed  to become  a sickness,  the film derides the misuse of  digital technology without   getting excessively sassy, knowledgeable or stylish.The  sharp-witted,  straight-shooting screenplay is  engrossing most  of  the way, creating pockets of havoc as  Karthivaran  takes on master-hacker Sathyamoorthy.For half  the film the director , who seems to have grown up reading internet stories of cyber-hacking, ensures that  the hero and the antagonist don’t come face-to-face. The buildup to their imminent  confrontation  is deftly projected into a  series of engrossing episodes, each suggesting  a link between privileged  information and its violation.

The action sequences  specially one post-interval where the  hero chases down his wrong-doers are first-rate, skilled in their build-up and  yet preserving a kind of rawness at the edges that goes well with the mood of shocked revelations regarding the damage  digital disinformation can do to our lives.

 The presentation is  smooth  but the  jagged edges in the inter-relations—for  instance  the troubled relationship between the hero and his financially troubled father—are not attempted to be blunted  for the sake  of  a smooth ride. We are  often  subjected to uncomfortable  interrogation on the way on  why we randomly and liberally part with private information.

Preserving the pontifications at a minimum the narrative  moves  quickly to action-packed second-half where the Hero and The Hacker clash in body and intellect.Vishal Krishna and Arjun  make formidable  adversaries. Their confirmation is agile and  adrenaline-charged bringing to the screen  a kind of  compelling kinetic combustion rare to our cinema.

Villain(Malyalam)  Villain  builds on Mohanlal’s power to express rage and grief without letting go.This time he plays his cat-and-mouse game  on  a sleek chessboard where the pieces are laid out neatly, a  little  too neatly , with all the plot points and emotional tropes  indicated to us from afar. We really don’t need to strain  our intellect or tap into our literary resources, although Shakespeare  is casually brought up in  a conversation.

For  company Mohanlal has Vishal Krishna, a remarkably engaging and intelligent actor who  makes the bumpersticker wisdom of his rhetorical dialogues sound like lines borrowed from the latest episodes  of Everybody Loves Raymond. I am  not too sure  if everybody would love Vishal Krishna’s Shaktivel, a smooth-talking  doctor, and a  portrait of moral  ambivalence who stores some surprise that he lets out in the later  portions of  the plot.

This is  strong part for  a co-star in  Mohanlal film and Vishal makes  the  best of it.

Sandakozhi 2(Tamil): Vishal Krishna, rapidly growing into one of the more dependable star-actors of Tamil cinema, plays Balu, an NRI who must join his father’s outcaste’s business of being a law unto himself. The only difference between Kamal Haasan’s Thevar Magan and this enjoyable mass entertainer is the message of peace that emerges from the deftly staged action sequences.

The machete has always been a major player in Tamil action films. Here, it makes its presence felt in the climax where Vishal must battle the female antagonist hell-bent on revenge.

Predominantly, “Sandakozhi 2” is a treatise on non-violence carpeted with vibrantly conceived action sequences. In one of them, Vishal in a crowded mela (which serves as the main location throughout the plot) tackles his opponents physically without letting his father and the other vigilant members of his gang know he is breaking the family rule: no violence.

Vishal takes centrestage in the revenge drama without hogging the limelight. Unlike his prominent peers from the South Indian cinema, he doesn’t dominate every frame. On many occasions, Rajkiran playing the peace-loving patriarch is put centrestage, while Vishal — uniquely quiet in his assertions of heroism — is akin to Ajay Devgn. Both Vishal and Ajay believe action speaks louder than words.