I was a Vijay fan, the kinda fan who had his posters pasted on a random window, tried copying his hairstyle, dressings, etc. But, everything changed after Kuruvi, Villu and after college, I stopped caring about his movies at all. And, then came Sura and the rest is history. After many years and some good, bad and ugly movies here we are at Bigil.
Another Deepavali, another Vijay release, another Atlee film and another usual mass masala film disguised as women-empowerment-sports-drama. But, I must confess I thoroughly enjoyed the show with fans dancing for the Verithanam song which was shown once-more for the fans.
I have my expectations right when Atlee joined Vijay for a sports film. And, right after the FL and trailer I know we are not in for a Chak De and I was right. It's about a footballer who couldn't make it big at the national level get a chance to coach a women's team at the national level and take it to glory. And, we don't have to mind about the opponent team's strategy or the players to win the cup, all he has to do is to handle the villain like any other Vijay film to win the cup.
The first half was everywhere, we get a college student protests, a minister, Vijay, referred to as CM (Captain Michael), thrashing the goons, etc which has zero connection to the story just for the sake of a hero intro. Then the love angle, before we get to know about this guy, we get to know about the football team, then a flashback about the footballer Bigil. Even before I could register himself as a player we get another Vijay as a don Rayappan. And, everything ends with a tragedy just to know the reason for how Bigil couldn't make it big at the national level.
And, the second half at least was focussed on the mission or on that football team and the players. It still got some fights, some "mass" scenes, etc. But, football matches weren't as interesting as it should be, we all know they are going to win. And, the pep-talk from the coach was the worst I've seen in any sports-based movies :D. But, at least after he was done with the villains, he gives some motivational speech to him as well, he let the girls play and win the cup though.
And, it's high time cinema stops showing those who are fat will be always eating something at any given time. And, some thousand other cliches were present as well. And, Atlee tries to make it as interesting as possible and few things work.
But, in spite of all these and despite the three hours running length, the movie works for me thanks to Vijay. He was so good as Michael @ Bigil. And, also good to see him show a little variety with the characters like Jeevanandham in Kaththi and Rayappan here with grey hair and stutters in this movie. But, it was hard to make him look old though. And, definitely, he is my inspiration to look fit.
As usual, Atlee's film was colorful and GK Vishnu's camera makes everything look rich. But, most of the dialogues were just too old, we can actually find the movies in which those dialogues were present. And, the songs work well on screen than as an album. Especially the prelude scene to Singapenney was nicely staged. And, Atlee somehow found a way to keep the heroine involved by giving her the role of the team's physio. All other actors like Jackie Shroff, Daniel Balaji, etc were just there. None of them make any impact though.
I think we have had enough of Atlee-Vijay combo. It's time for Atlee to do something more original with some other actors and I am already excited to see what kinda movie will be Vijay's next with Lokesh.
Overall, I had a fun time at the theatre, the kinda movie I would like to watch on a festival day.
Yes, it looks like there's still a Vijay fan inside me.
