A still from the movie 'Bairavaa'Annan romba fast ennu intha oorukke theriyum (Brother is too fast and the entire place knows that) – you hear that from the tea boy about Bairavaa (Vijay) and soon, our hero flies in on a bicycle with the punchy 'Varlaam varlaam vaa, Bairavaa' playing in the backdrop. His day has just begun.
Bairavaa cracks a joke or two with his roommate (Sathish), neatly dresses up as the gentleman that he is and goes to work. He walks into a bank, the entire office greets him with 'good morning sir'. Is he the bank manager? No, he's a collection agent – one who is ready to use physical force, when needed, to make sure that the bank gets its dues back from loan-takers.
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True, every job demands respect, but I've never seen a collection agent who almost gets a standing ovation in office.
Bairavaa's first assignment that we witness introduces us to a cricket-flavored stunt sequence, where the hero shows off his batting skills with a bunch of baddies and smashes every ball hard at fielders and bowlers to make them bite the dust. Bairavaa has Sachin's cover drive, Sehwag's straight drive, Ponting's hook shot and MS Dhoni's helicopter shot all up his sleeve. Though this sounds a bit over the top, this scene was fun to watch.
The plot develops in the most predicable manner from there on; Bairavaa meets Malarvizhi (Keerthy Suresh), falls for her. More goons follow her and Bairavaa wants to know why. Malarvizhi starts narrating Bairavaa her story at a busy bus stand and the super villain is presented to us in flashback – PK (Jagapathi Babu). Standing in the middle of the bus stand, Malarvizhi goes on and on with the story for over 30 minutes. Erhm, sit somewhere and talk, please?
Villain ready, hero ever ready and the battle line is drawn. More fights, songs and preaching on family values queue up in line and appear on screen as and when their turn comes up.
Bairavaa's script disappoints. The writing offers nothing exciting for the audience and the hero's sermons are quite laughable. Cliches galore in the plot and director-writer Bharathan fails to make a connect with the audience through his storytelling.
However, Vijay does a neat job with his usual antics, power-packed fight sequences, flawless dance and as the romantic hero. The pretty Keerthy Suresh does her role convincingly. Jagapathy Babu is again seen in a villain role that we've seen umpteen times before. It is Daniel Balaji's portrayal of Kottai Veeran that stands out from the others.
Though he's a menacing goon, his selfless love for his ailing wife is a fine touch given by the writer and the actor does a smooth sail.
Other actors like Vijayaraghavan, Aparna Vinod, Sija Rose and Sathish play what's expected of them.
In Kabali, Santhosh Narayanan cleverly layered his style of music for a Rajinikanth film. But the songs in Bairavaa are not up to the mark. For an action film, M. Sukumar's camerawork and Praveen KL's racy cuts do the job.
Bairavaa is just another run-of-the mill Vijay film which will only be celebrated by Ilayathalapathy's die hard fans.
Onmanorama rating: 2/5
