Vedam

Lead actors: Allu Arjun, Manoj Manchu, Anushka Shetty, Manoj Bajpai, Lekha Washington, Deeksha Seth, Saranya

Watched the movie almost two weeks back and missed the first half hour of the movie. Yet, here goes!

Vedam tracks 5 stories to give the audience a simple a message; that the greatest ‘vedam’ is nothing but to live and let live. The 5 stories sometimes seem like a stark contrast to each other, and sometimes complement each other. The biggest disappointment though is that the message (what I wrote above) isn’t lucidly shown in the movie.

I just caught that line from a song from the movie and somehow it went deep into my head and I watched the movie from that perspective and felt that the movie wanted to convey the same. I don’t know why I gave so much importance to that line, it wasn’t exactly highlighted, and maybe the point I got wasn't what the director wanted to convey!

Well, if that is the point or IF there is any other point, then the movie does a pretty lousy job at conveying it. Those who didn’t notice that line will find the movie to be a hotch-potch of stories with nothing much in common except the very clichéd climax.

Coming to the story, Allu Arjun plays a guy who dreams of bungalows but lives in a slum. He has this uber-rich girlfriend (Deeksha Seth) who thinks he is the same (this guy manages the show that way) and plans to introduce him to her mom at a party. But…the ticket to the party costs about 30K for 2! So what does our hero do? He decides to steal to make the money!

Manoj Manchu and his rock band have to head to Bangalore for a concert – their biggest break ever. They miss their flight and hence decide to go by car. After a crazy attempt to overtake a lorry who’s driver mocks him, they end-up with a flat tyre. This guy is left with a girl from the band (Lekha Washington) while the others set off to get the tyre repaired. A bunch of people soon show up and force them to marry or tie a rakhi. This guy gets into a fight with them and is almost killed…

Manoj Bajpai is a Muslim (that needs to be explicitly mentioned for the story) who loses his to-be-born child when he gets into a brawl with a Hindu procession. He then decides to fly away to another country to run away from the place which caused tragedy in his life, but the police land at his door a day before his departure and arrest him and his nephews on the grounds that they are terrorists. Well, he isn’t! So he protests, but to no avail…

A poor farmer sells off his kidney to pay some dues. Now this guy suggests the same thing to his niece (Saranya) to release her son from bondage labor and get him educated. There two naïve people are told to lie that they are related to the kidney recipient, but they screw it up and are kicked out….but these people NEED the money.

Anushka Shetty plays the role of a prostitute who escapes from the place along with a transvestite. But they both keep landing in trouble and when escaping from a place the transvestite is stabbed!

Well, after a lot of twists and turns in the plot, the 5 tracks end up at a hospital! And the hospital is attacked by terrorists!

I liked the 5 stories and each was given its own importance. Many are of the opinion that the Anushka Shetty role was completely unnecessary, but I think it was included to convey that transvestites are humans too. I appreciate the fact that Allu Arjun, Manchu Manoj, Anushka Shetty agreed to play those roles and shared the stage with the others.

The 5 stories start off brilliantly. The Allu Arjun and the kidney-transplant plots were the best. I felt that the other 3 tracks lost their steam somewhere in all those twists and turns. The climax is, as I said, clichéd, fails to impress and hardly has an impact.

Well, atleast they tried something different and innovative, I would love to see more such (and better) movies in Telugu.

Verdict: A good one, better than most of the movies these days. Should be watched for its uniqueness

Rating: 3/5