Vishal's Poojai review

Vishal's Tamil movie Poojai hit theatres today. Before we tell you more about the film, let's take a look at the movie crew.

Directed by Hari

Produced by Vishal

Written by Hari, Shashank Vennelakanti

Starring Vishal, Shruti Haasan, Sathyaraj, Radhika Sarathkumar

Music by Yuvan Shankar Raja

Cinematography Priyan

Edited by V. T. Vijayan, T. S. Jai

Production company Vishal Film Factory

Distributed by Vendhar Movies

• About the movie: The movie is an action entertainer with all the mass elements. The director of the movie called it a "triangular action story" which starts in Coimbatore and ends in Patna. Radhika Sarthkumar plays Vishal's mother in the movie. Prathap Pothen and Janaki Sabesh essay roles of Shruti's parents.
• Watch out for Andrea's item number shot in Chennai's Koyambedu market
• The producer has spent a crore to shoot an action scene alone. A huge set was erected at Saligramam
• The movie has been shot across Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Karaikudi, Bihar and Switzerland
• According to reports, Poojai has been released in 1000 screens worldwide
• The movie is dubbed and released in Telugu as Pooja

Touted as a triangular action drama, the film has Vishal playing the role of an angru young man who must solve two different sets of problems and deal with the goons. Shruti is playing an out of college youngster while Sathyaraj is a police officer.

Poojai is an Tamil film directed by Hari and produced by Vishal, who himself plays the lead role alongside an ensemble cast featuring Shruti Haasan, Sathyaraj, Raadhika Sarathkumar and Mukesh Tiwari. Yuvan Shankar Raja composed the soundtrack and score for the film, while cinematography and editing were handled by Priyan and V. T. Vijayan, respectively.

The film was officially launched on 28 March 2014 and principal photography began on 18 April 2014. The film is scheduled for an October 2014 release on the occasion of Deepavali along with its Telugu dubbed version titled Pooja.

Music:

The Music was composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, collaborating with Hari again after seven years. The album consists of six songs and Na. Muthukumar had written the lyrics for all songs. The audio rights were purchased by Vishal's newly launched music company, V Music.

Casting:

Early reports in December had suggested that Shruti Haasan would be signed on to play the film's heroine, though she only confirmed her participation in March 2014. Sathyaraj and Soori were added to the cast to play supporting roles, while actress Kausalya was announced to be making a comeback with the film starring alongside a bevy of other supporting actresses. The team approached Rekha to play Vishal's mother in the film, but her unavailability meant that the team later cast Radhika Sarathkumar. Prathap Pothen and Janaki Sabesh were also selected to play the parents of Shruti Haasan's character. Andrea Jeremiah was selected to dance in a special number, a folk song, with Vishal.

Take a look at the trailer of the movie which gives a peek into the story:

We will soon be back with the report on box office collection. So, come back for all the movie updates.

Twitter Review:

Click Here to View: Vishal's Poojai Movie Twitter Review

Full story/rating

Review by Haricharan Pudipeddi

Gopalakrishnan has written "Poojai" with the mindset that anything that comes from his camp will be lapped up by audiences, no matter how good or bad it is. After all, he's the master of commercial entertainers such as "Saamy" and "Singam".

If you've followed his films over the years, it's easier to predict "Poojai" from start to finish with eyes closed. Because of which you realise the director never tries to innovate with his films and usually sticks to a template he's done to death.

In his films, the hero is usually very close to his father or mother. In "Saamy", Vikram was very close to his father, and so was Suriya in "Singam". Vishal is very close to his mother in "Poojai", and that's why when his mother asks him break the hand that slapped his uncle, he proudly obliges.

Gopalakrishnan, known for featuring large families that stay in large houses in his stories, continues the format in this film as well. Vishal belongs to a large family and their house is considered the biggest in their city.

There's always a reference about familial and financial status in his films. Here, Vishal is turned down by Shruti Haasan for the same reason. In "Saamy", Vikram's father is insulted by the heroine's father on the basis of his economical status.

Most commercial films are plagued by a serious problem for the need to include a romantic track. And most of these romantic plots make us wonder if falling in love is so simple.

In "Poojai", Shruti and Vishal break into a duet song after the former wipes some gravy off the latter's shirt. At that exact moment, we hear Soori passing a funny comment (he has won her heart with a drop of gravy).

We're not sure if the director is actually so stupid to be writing these scenes or he probably assumes his audience to be dumb. It definitely has to be the former because there are definitely better ways to induce feelings of love or intimacy between two people.

His films are high on action. It's so high that villains literally bounce off the floor when they get roughed up by Vishal. Jeeps fly in the air like they are toys tossed off a table by a kid. There are far too many chase scenes, weak villains and songs that definitely don't deserve to be mentioned.

Both "Saamy" and "Singam" worked because the heroes were complemented by great villains. If it was Kota Srinivasa Rao in "Saamy", it was the highly talented Prakash Raj in "Singam".

In "Poojai", however, we're tortured with villains who hardly have any purpose. Our filmmakers need to understand it's perfectly alright to feature a Tamil actor to play a villain settled in Bihar. Thousands of Tamilians have settled in Bihar, so what's wrong if you show a Tamil antagonist there?

Both the Diwali releases "Kaththi" and "Poojai" have one thing in common. It's the terrible roles of the leading ladies. We really wonder if filmmakers take any interest at all in writing better romantic tracks for heroines, who are usually used as glam dolls.

"Poojai" should've been more than just the hero flexing his muscles and fighting.

Rating 2/5