Vedalam ({{lang-en|Reaper}}) is a 2015 Indian Tamil-language action film^[2] written and directed by Siva, and produced by Aishwarya. the film features Ajith Kumar, Shruti Haasan and Lakshmi Menon in the lead roles, with Rahul Dev, Kabir Duhan Singh, and Soori in supporting roles. Anirudh Ravichander composed the film's music and background score, while Vetri was the cinematographer, and Ruben was the editor. The film began production in April 2015 and was released on 10 November 2015, coinciding with Diwali. It was remade in Bengali in 2018 as The Saviour.

Plot

Ganesh (Ajith Kumar) and his sister Thamizh (Lakshmi Menon) come to settle down in Kolkata, where she has enrolled for a course to hone her artistic skills. Ganesh is an extremely peace-loving, soft-hearted person who makes even rowdies like Kolkata Kaali (Motta Rajendran) like him instantly. Kolkata is the operating base of a high-profile international criminal syndicate run by three brothers: Rahul (Rahul Dev), Abhinay (Kabir Duhan Singh) and Aniket (Aniket Chauhan). Ganesh, advised by his new house owner (Mayilswamy), starts working under Laxmidas (Soori), who owns a taxi company.

Cops in Kolkata ask taxi and auto drivers for help in nabbing criminal members of Rahul's gang and prepare a suspect list. Ganesh identifies one of the suspects and informs the police about the whereabouts of the criminals, which leads to a large haul of illegal weapons, drugs, and money, and to the arrest of many lower level gang members belonging to Rahul. Frustrated, Aniket finds Ganesh and brings him to his yacht to be killed, but is instead killed by Ganesh, who becomes extremely violent during the altercation. Simultaneously, Ganesh gets acquainted with Swetha (Shruti Hassan), and he brother Arjun (Ashwin Kakumanu) gets acquainted with Thamizh in two separate incidents. They are attracted to each other, and Arjun gets his parents to meet and officially ask for Thamizh's hand in marriage.

Abhinay learns about Aniket's death, comes to Kolkata, and tries to find the murderer using a highly sophisticated technical team who track the GPS of the mobile which were in the area. As the final trace emerges, it is revealed that Ganesh has infiltrated the building where Abhinay had set up camp. Ganesh, after a violent fight with the mercenaries and Abhinay, kills everyone in the building. He receives Rahul's call and informs him about the deaths of Abhinay and Aniket, while all this has been witnessed by Swetha. Swetha rushes to stop the engagement of his brother, but is stopped by Ganesh, who reveals his history of being Vedalam, a notorious goon in Chennai who was shown affection by Thamizh and her parents even though he evicted them from their own house for money. Thamizh gets entangled in a flesh trade kidnapping scandal under Abhinay and is rescued by Ganesh, but also incurs an injury, which affects her memory. Her parents are also murdered during this incident. Ganesh brings her to Kolkata to take revenge and enroll her in an arts college.

Rahul, who coincidentally gets help from Thamizh to sketch out the suspect, kidnaps her and thus ensues a final takedown fight with Ganesh. Ganesh is able to hide his true violent self from Thamizh and also kill Rahul, thus exacting his revenge and keeping his sister safe.

Cast

• Ajith Kumar as Ganesh aka "Vedalam" Ganesh, who was formerly a don, but later, when he emptied Thamizh and her blind parents' house, they resided in his house. After their death, he lied to Thamizh (who had a memory loss) that he is her brother.
• Lakshmi Menon as Thamizh (Trisha in Hindi version), a blind couple's daughter who is a memory loss patient and wants to enroll in an arts college.
• Shruti Haasan as Swetha, an advocate at Kolkata. She lost her job because of Ganesh and decides to take revenge, but later after discovering what he has done for Thamizh and her family, she falls for him.
• Rahul Dev as Rahul, the main antagonist who later kidnaps Thamizh.
• Kabir Duhan Singh as Abhinay, Rahul's first younger brother who wants to find out Aniket's death but gets killed by Ganesh.
• Aniket Chouhan as Aniket, Rahul's second younger brother whom Ganesh kills on Aniket's yacht after Aniket attempted to kill Ganesh.
• Soori as Laxmidas, a local taxicab owner at Kolkata.
• Ashwin Kakumanu as Arjun, Swetha's brother who gets married to Thamizh. (guest appearance)
• Rajendran as "Kolkata" Kaali, a rowdy
• Thambi Ramaiah as Thamizh's father and a blind man
• Mayilswamy as Ganesh's house owner who advises Ganesh to work under Laxmidas.
• Sudha as Gomathi, Thamizh's mother
• Appukutty as Kuzhandai, Ganesh's assistant
• Avinash as Rahul's assistant
• Mansoor Ali Khan as Inspector Manimaran
• Raviraj as Swetha and Arjun's father
• Sriranjini as Swetha and Arjun's mother
• Kovai Sarala as Laxmidas's mother-in-law
• Nagineedu as Doctor
• Sreeja Ravi as Nurse
• Bala Saravanan as Swetha's junior
• Swaminathan as Swamy, Swetha's junior
• Ramesh Thilak as Phony Witness
• Yogi Babu as Chatterjee, Kaali's assistant
• Vidyullekha Raman as Esther, Thamizh's friend
• Rajkumar as Arjun's friend
• Sharmila Thappa as Laxmidas's wife
• Meera Krishnan as House Owner's wife
• Jasper as Manimaran's brother
• Kalairani as a victim's mother
• R. N. R. Manohar as Corrupt Police Officer
• D. R. K. Kiran as Bombay gangster
• Sukran as Sub-Inspector
• Aryan Ashik as Doctor
• "Nandhini" Sriganesh as part of the doctors team

Production

Development

After the success of their previous collaboration Veeram (2014), Siva announced that he would direct[Ajith Kumar again in May 2014, with the planned venture announced to begin after the completion of Ajith Kumar's prior commitments with his ongoing film, Yennai Arindhaal (2015).^[4][5] Siva worked on the script in Bangalore and approached corporate companies, including PVP Cinemas, to produce the film, though eventually A. M. Rathnam announced that he would finance the production.^[6]

Production was briefly delayed because Ajith Kumar wanted to spend time with his pregnant wife following the completion of his other film.^[7]

Anirudh Ravichander was signed to compose the film's music and background score, while Vetri and Ruben were announced as cinematographer and editor respectively. The film was developed without a title, before it was confirmed that it would be titled as Vedalam in September 2015.^[8]

In late 2014, Hansika Motwani denied reports that she had also signed on to appear in the film.^[9] The producers entered discussions to finalise the cast and crew of the film during early 2015, with Shruti Haasan and Kabir Duhan Singh signed on in March to portray the leading actress and antagonist, respectively.^[10] The role of Ajith's sister in the film took considerably longer to finalise, with several actresses approached to portray the character. Actresses Sri Divya, Nithya Menen and Bindu Madhavi all turned down the opportunity, with the latter saying she was only interested in playing the lead actress opposite Ajith.^[11][12] After further unsuccessful negotiations with Parvathy Nair, actress Lakshmi Menon was signed on to play the role of Ajith's sister in the film in April 2015.^[13] Soori joined the cast soon after production began, after replacing Santhanam in the film who became busy with his own productions. Ashwin was also added to the cast to portray a supporting role in late May 2015.^[14]

Filming

An official launch was held on 9 April 2015, with scenes intermittently shot for the rest of the month.^[15] The first official schedule began shooting in Navalur, Chennai with scenes featuring Ajith and Lakshmi Menon entering a college.^[16] Subsequent scenes were shot around sets in Chennai throughout June 2015, with Kabir Duhan Singh joining the shoot, while a song resembling a 'pooja bhajan' was shot featuring Ajith, Lakshmi and actor Mayilswamy.^[17] The team then moved to Kolkata and scenes were shot featuring Shruti Haasan as a lawyer and Ajith as a taxi driver, with images from the shoot being leaked on social networking sites.^[18] The unit then moved to shoot a song sequence in Milan, Italy featuring Ajith and Shruti Haasan.^[19]

The team returned to Chennai in August 2015 to film night scenes and action sequences, with actor Rahul Dev joining the team for the shoot, while scenes were also shot at Ramee Mall.^[20][21] A final schedule was held at Mohan Studios in Chennai, with Ajith Kumar with cropped hair, resembling his look from his earlier film, Red (2002).^[22] The team finished production in mid-October 2015 after completing patch-up work on a song. Ajith was injured during the final day of the shoot, causing a minor delay.^[23] Despite his injury, Ajith began dubbing for the film immediately, in order to ensure that it would release to coincide with the festival of Diwali in November 2015.^[24]

Soundtrack

The music was composed by Anirudh Ravichander, collaborating for the first time with Ajith Kumar and Siva.

Marketing

The film's title and first look poster were reported to be revealed in September 2015, on Ganesh Chaturthi, which did not happen. On 23 September, Ajith's manager Suresh Chandraa officially confirmed via Twitter that the title and the first look would release that night. At 12:00 am, the film's first look and title were released, which confirmed the title Vedalam.{{citation needed|date=October 2015}} Behindwoods commented on the first look, "Ajith wears a super cool red kurta with short trimmed hair, a trim stubble, to go with a metal bracelet in one of the hands and a big stud in his left ear. A look that takes us back to his 'Red' days".^[25]

The film's teaser was released on 8 October 2015. By amassing 50,000 likes in one hour from the time it was made public, it created a new record in the history of YouTube set previously by Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood".^[26]

Release

The film was released on 10 November, 2015.^[1] The film yielded a distributor share of {{INR}}40 crore in Tamil Nadu.^[27]

The satellite rights of the film were sold to Jaya TV.^[28] Vedalam{{'}}s Tamil Nadu rights were sold to Jazz Cinemas for 33 crore.^[29] It was remade in Bengali in 2018 as The Saviour by Raja Chanda starring Jeet.^[30]

Critical reception

Sify described the film as average, noting, "Vedhalam is Ajith's one man show and it might enthrall his ardent fans for others..." also calling it "a formulaic film with lot of enjoyable moments."^[31] Indiaglitz rated the film 3 out of 5, calling it an "enjoyable mass entertainer."^[32]

Avinash Gopinath of Filmibeat gave the film 3.5/5 stars and concluded, "Though this movie suffers from logical loopholes and melodramatic sequences, it gets saved by Ajith and director Siva's propaganda that puts human values before money, which makes Vedalam watchable."^[33] Behindwoods rated the film 2.5 out of 5, stating, "Vedalam – Sparks do fly but not frequently enough."^[34] M. Suganth of The Times of India rated the film 3/5 and called it "a packaged mass entertainer for Ajith fans and family audiences".^[35]

Legacy

The scene where Ajith gets transformed from meek to tough and the subsequent fight scene was parodied in Tamizh Padam 2 (2018).^[36]

References

External links

• {{IMDb title|5178278|Vedhalam}}