Vamshi taps half-baked family meal for Vijay’s Pongal feast Varisu | Review

Throw in a family concoction, pour some drama and sign up Vamshi Paidipally for a Pongal blockbuster – And you get 'Varisu'.

Vamshi does not have any qualms about acknowledging that the Vijay-starrer is a throwback to the formula era – a stale mix of traditional family values, a prodigal heir and a fortune awaiting business inheritance.

The unit in the focus of Vamshi’s bilingual potboiler is a joint family. So it is only apt that they live in a house of epic proportions on a compound the size of a football ground.

And since wealth is the fulcrum of everything on earth and Mars, as per the business tycoon head of the family, their swanky living conditions are factored in.

The only misfit in this house of epic proportions seems to be the young Varisu, or heir, who doesn’t fall in line with the vaulting business ambitions of the head of the family and his businesses.

Akin to the family dramas of the 80s, Vamshi then places a family doctor, who is also a wellwisher as we would come to know later, in the plot. Prabhu can be the good samaritan here.

If a dotting mom is a must, so is a comedy track that runs parallel to the movie. Jayasudha and Yogi Babu are the chosen ones for these slots.

That leaves space for the villain or villains, and finally the romantic interest of the superstar. So we have Prakash Raj, Rashmika Mandanna and S J Suriah, who are thrown in like tarot cards suited to gauge certain situations to our convenience. Sarathkumar is the standout performer in this mediocre family drama.

We have three songs by the interval break itself. The hit number 'Ranjithame' coming out of nowhere.

Varisu ain’t a Tamil Movie, nor is it Telugu.

It has a mix that worked decades back but lacks the punch to shore up the fortunes of a superstar.

If we intend to cook sambar and it ends up as rasam, something is fundamentally wrong.

In this case, like truckloads of vegetables for sambar, the vital ingredient should have been the punch.

Varisu neither offers the punch for fans, nor does it have a connect.

Vamshi’s Sankranti, Pongal offering leaves a lot of raw, uncooked ingredients. Over to the magnanimity of the box office  to tell a different tale.