Vikram Vedha Teaser: For some time now, storytelling in Bollywood has become redundant as they revolve around a few set measures. Biopics, money-minting patriotic subjects, periodic films, and remakes of South Indian movies, are the four pillars of storytelling in the Hindi film industry. After the euphoric success of the Shahid Kapoor-starrer Kabir Singh, which was the Hindi remake of the Telugu movie Arjun Reddy, it seems that Bollywood has developed a deep affinity for South Indian movies.
Unfortunately for the Hindi film industry, movies like RRR, Pushpa, KGF, and Vikram Hitlist have blurred the longstanding barrier between North and South as these movies have been widely loved and appreciated by audiences stationed across the country. The original movie featuring R. Madhavan and Vijay Sethupathi who played titular characters in the movie was highly appreciated for their performances and garnered positive reviews from critics and audiences.
The original movie which was touted as the best Tamil movie to be released in 2017 saw both R. Madhavan and Vijay Sethupathi at the heights of their acting prowess. Madhavan's character Vikram had a perfect blend of being "stylish and serious" whereas Vijay Sethupathi's character Vedha had all the "flare and class" required to play an impactful bad guy. The storyline of Vikram Vedha puts the audience in a strange conundrum as they equally feel love and hate for both the antagonist and protagonist. Writer-director duo of the R. Madhavan and Vijay Sethupathi flick Pushkar-Gayathri have now returned for the Hindi version and have roped in Hrithik Roshan and Saif Ali Khan to play the titular roles.
In March 2018, the duo Pushkar-Gayathri confirmed that they intend to make a Hindi version of their critically acclaimed movie in collaboration with YNOT Studios, Plan C Studios, and Reliance Entertainment. Seeing the potential in the script and how the audiences had responded to the original movie, T-series decided to join the project in 2021. The project draws parallels from a renowned folktale collection Betaal Pachisi and will pit superstars Hrithik Roshan and Saif Ali Khan against each other. A few things are worth mentioning in the released teaser which might not go down well with the audiences. As compared to the Tamil version, it seems that the Hindi version of Vikram Vedha is trying too hard to make the frames look larger than life. There was a certain amount of rawness and gritty tone to the original which helped the characters of Vikram and Vedha to bloom. On the contrary, everything seems to revolve around Hrithik and Saif in the Hindi version with little or absolutely no emphasis on the setup and construction of the frames.
Watch the teaser here
Hrithik Roshan over the years has delivered some great performances. There is more to him than just his good looks. But this is the first time, he is playing a character that is neither black nor white and operates in that little grey area. The superstar's dialect in the movie is certain to be compared to what he did in Super 30 as he seems repetitive with his lines. Vedha's version in the Hindi movie looks more like an amalgamation of Anand Kumar from Super 30 and Ethan Mascarenhas from Gzaarish. On the other Saif Ali Khan plays a cop obsessed with Vedha and shares a love-hate relationship with him. The Nawaab of Pataudi shines in the teaser and he tries to maintain the rawness in Vikram's character, certainly not similar to what R. Madhavan did. The 1-minute 46-long teaser that is all about guns, gang wars, police encounters, and blood stains certainly lacks the oomph and spectacle that was expected out of it. But right now, it is too quick to judge an entire film based on a 106 seconds teaser and only time will tell if this movie can go ahead and deliver something that isn't expected.
