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Viduthalai 2 suffers from something as basic as exposition. Characters keep telling you what’s happening with the story.
A still from the film.
Viduthalai Part 2 A
2/5
Starring: Vijay Sethupathi, Soori, Chetan, Manju Warrier Director: Vetrimaaran
Vetri Maaran’s Viduthalai Part 1, told from the perspective of a new police constable Kumaresan (Soori), posted in a rural hillside Tamil Nadu village, explored the story of an extremist organisation named Makkal Padai and its head Perumal Vaathiyar (Vijay Sethupathi). Makkal Padai has a history, but when we entered the world in the first part, the conflict was immediate as the terrorist organisation had just bombed a passenger train killing and injuring several lives. The premise answered both ‘why and why now’ of the film’s existence. It ended with the arrest of Vaathiyar, aided by Kumaresan, who is on the brink of getting disillusioned with the government’s propaganda against the organisation. The effective first part left us with many questions about Vaathiyar and how it will affect Kumaresan.
Naturally, the second part is supposed to finish the hero’s journey–in this case the journey of Kumaresan. It also has to provide an answer to the train blast, which was the starting point of the whole film. While Vetri Maaran resolves such issues, those are treated as afterthoughts. Instead, the film burdens itself with telling the life history of Vaathiyar and the origin of Makka Padai. On the other hand, Kumaresan is reduced to a supporting character. One can argue that he is the narrator of the film, but that is a flimsy excuse for this screenwriting disaster.
That’s the core problem of Viduthalai Part 2. In an attempt to make an epic of sorts about the rise of a leader, Vetrimaaran abandons precision and focus. From being a gripping story of a modest constable and his struggle to make sense of the treacherous politics surrounding him, Viduthalai Part 2 ends up becoming a generic sermon on leftist ideology. The film no longer concerns Kumaresan, his love interest, and his inner turmoil. Rather, it indulges in a predictable story of Perumal, a schoolteacher, who evolves into an extremist revolutionary.
Without a doubt, Vetri Maaran has his intentions in the right place. He makes a strong case for the uprising against caste-based discrimination, establishments, and exploitation of labour. Even as he tells the story of Vaathiyaar, he subtly puts forth how Dravidian and communist politics have liberated people from the grasp of casteist zamindars and capitalistic crooks. A significant time is spent on stressing the importance of unions, and a lot more is spent on verbose communist monologues that are hard-hitting and inspiring. However, in the context of the movie, it is excess as the narrative becomes all over the place. While a motive is essential for a story, it can’t be the story itself. Viduthalai 2 lingers too much on the set-up and motive behind the violence, and when the film finally resumes its present narrative, it doesn’t have much to say. It is gripping when it is focused on individual characters. For instance, the character arc of the officer-in-charge Ragavendar (Chetan) and his actions make the film far more gripping than the overarching narrative about Makkal Padai.
On top of that, Viduthalai 2 suffers from something as basic as exposition. Characters keep telling you what’s happening with the story. In the battleground, Vaathiyaar goes on and on about why he will not be killed if he gets arrested. Even there he doesn’t stop his sermon about the importance of ideologies. Amidst all the lines, there is this journey of Vaathiyaar–from police custody to escape and back to police custody. While he and the film travel a great length, the displacement of the screenplay is zero. The dense dialogues make it more contrived and didactic. In essence, Viduthalai Part 2 is Vetri Maaran constantly finding ways to tell you the uninspiring story, which he couldn’t show.