Vendhu Thanindhathu Kaadu (Life Of Muthu) Review

Director: Gautham Vasudev Menon
Producer: Ishari K. Ganesh
Cast: Silambarasan, Siddhi Idnani and others
Music: A. R. Rahman
Banner: Vels Film International

Everyone’s eyes now are on GVM’s comeback, And his latest movie starring Simbu, Vendhu Thanindhathu Kaadu (Life Of Muthu) has been released the other day, let’s see whether the movie able to bring back GVM in fine form with a new avatar or not.

Story deals about the journey of an ordinary man becoming a powerful gangster , Muthu ( Simbu) is a Villager who used to live with his mom and sister due to to unfortunate circumstances he comes to Mumbai, he starts to work in a hotel which is linked with underworld, soon that also drags him into it and makes him a gangster, what happened Next, how did Muthu survive in that mafia world forms the rest of the story.

There is an interesting scene at the start of the movie where Simbu has to pick up the gun in an inevitable circumstance, while he was in a dilemma about whether to pick it up or not, it jump cuts to another shot, and we’re not shown the action of him picking the gun there, but after some scenes, it will be shown, intercutting with the dialogues of whether Muthu ends up on good/bad side, and then it sharp cuts to a blank screen, and there comes “written and directed by GVM”, yeah!! that’s how you should establish the journey of your protagonist, that’s how you should reveal your name! with such a slick cut, theatre roared when GVM’s name appeared in such a manner.

This is just an example of many such excellently written, exceptionally crafted sequences in the movie, also the carefully created Muthu’s world , especially in the first half, the characters, the dialogues, and the dynamics between them seem so natural , it won’t take much time to get immersed into its world.

Simbu as Muthu was incredible, his character demands him to underplay by being subtle, and vulnerable for the most part, and he portrays it to the teeth, it’s his career’s best performance.

Technically the movie was remarkable, the Cinematography by Siddhartha Nui is splendid, the lighting and atmosphere of the Muthu’s world was captured very naturally yet intensely, editing by Anthony was slick, and the best part of ‘Vendhu Thanindhathu Kaadu’ is of course A R Rahman’s music, the vibe of the ‘Mallipoo’ song is to be experienced only in theatre, it’s a freaking good track but the visual context to it, the lead to that song elevates its impact by 10 times, also his background score packs the proceedings with a solid punch and overwhelms us every time it rises.

In second half the pace of the movie drops and narration gets derailed a bit, also the love track between hero and heroine could’ve been better, Siddhi Idhani as Paavai, Muthu’s love interest was okay, she looked beautiful but had role got more substance, the output of love track would’ve been better.

Thumbs Up

Simbu’s Performance
AR Rahman’s music
First half

Thumbs Down

Love track
Few hiccups in the second half

VTK remains interesting, Jeyamohan wrote an amazing character called Muthu, who is more powerful and also more sensible, and GVM gave a Good life to Jeyamohan’s writing through his direction.

Bottomline: Powerful Gangster