Like any Vijaykanth movie, Tamil film Perarasu starts with a good cop. CBI officer Kasiviswanathan -- who else but Vijaykanth -- takes control of an investigation into the kidnapping of a judge.
The officer impresses everybody around him with his skills and awesome intuition and everyone accepts him as their 'Captain'.
Kasi uses unique methods to chase the villains. Part of this technique dictates that he goes after them alone and he uses his biggest weapon, rhetoric, to further the investigation.
Anand Raj does a decent job portraying an inspector of the Tamil Nadu police force, who aids his captain honestly. Pandiya Rajan plays a wisecracking constable, the comedy element in the movie, thankfully without getting on your nerves.
The investigation leads Kasi and his men deep into a conspiracy involving three assistant commissioners of police (ACPs), who have acted on the orders of a very culturally-oriented (literally!) minister, Ilakkiyan. An actor of Prakash Raj's calibre does not have to try hard to come across convincingly as a minister in Tamil Nadu.
The three ACPs are murdered and a beggar identifies Kasi as the murderer, which sends Anand Raj on a quest to trap him. Just before the interval, you are told that the murderer is not our Kasi but Perarasu who looks like him.
After the break, Vijaykanth starts the hunt for the impostor, during the course of which he finds out that Perarasu is actually his twin.
Vijaykanth has played both the honest cop and the unlawful good guy in several movies. Perhaps he was not satisfied with those roles and he therefore decided to play both these roles in the same movie!
This movie illustrates that the problem with Tamil cinema is not a bad story. But a bad presentation. The screenplay is actually quite decent and there are very few scenes that bore you. What I find inexplicable is what seems to be heroine Damini's desperate 'craving' to appear in the movie. Thankfully, she does so in not more than five scenes.
The direction is just about decent. The cinematographer does not excel. The biggest disappointment is composer Pravin Mani. Mani's stint with A R Rahman leads one to expect some influence from the maestro on Mani's work. But the score and the songs in the movie are ordinary at best.
In the fight sequences between the Vijaykanth twins, a fan does not know whether to support the good Vijaykanth or the unlawful Vijaykanth. So he ends up supporting the MLA, Captain Vijaykanth. The film at a certain juncture stops criticising politicians because now the captain is an MLA.
Perarasu is probably worth a watch.
Rediff Rating:
