Film: Vana Yuddham
Starring: Arjun,Vijayalakshmi,Lakshmi Rai,Suresh Oberoi,Ravi Kale
Director: AMR Ramesh
Producer: AMR Ramesh,Jagadeesh ,V Srinivas
Banner: Akshaya Creations
Music: Sandeep Chowta
Story
Vana Yuddham is a biopic about the last days of forest brigand Veerappan. The story starts with childhood days of Veerappan (Kishore) and killing of animals and smuggling. Then comes the story of kidnapping Kannada super star Rajkumar and releasing him after 102 days. By this incident Tamilnadu Chief Minister appoints a special officer Vijayakumar IPS (Arjun) as the STF chief to kill Veerappan and his gang. They will go for a master plan to kill Veerappan.
Performances
Kishore (Veerappan) proves to be a good performer and gave his absolute justice to his character. His attire as Veerappan is almost outstanding.
Arjun (Vijayakumar IPS) is powerful with an amazing on-screen presence looked good. His performance as D.G.P is outstanding and Arjun delivered absolute skills which are required.
Technical Analysis
Technically Vijay Milton’s camera, Antony’s fast paced editing and Sandeep Chowtha’s background score are the highlights of the film. The director has been able to shoot in actual locations, which makes it interesting. However the forced deletion of scenes sticks out like a sore thumb. There are no female characters in the film except Lakshmi Rai who makes a wink-you-will-miss appearance as a TV anchor. Vijayalakshmi‘s scenes including Veerappan’s marriage to her has been totally deleted
Analysis
Amr Ramesh gets the credits as he dealing on someone’s real life story which was too controversial and sensitive is very rare in Indian cinema.
It's not easy to recreate a fitting saga drawn out of real life incidents of a controversial story, but filmmaker AMR Ramesh does his best to make this biopic of India's most wanted dacoit Veerappan appear plausible. What could have been a pulsating thriller of sorts, is jeopardised due to a screenplay that fails to evoke interest and keep the audiences hooked. That said, one can't ignore this film as it successfully brings forth crucial events from the life of the late poacher-turned-dacoit.
In little over two hours, "Vana Yuddham" presents us events from the lives of Veerappan; starting from the initial days as a poacher to his last days as the most feared dacoit in the country. On the contrary, you also refrain from sympathising after you learn about the hundreds of lives that were snuffed by Veerappan himself.
If you were to compare the pre-interval and post-interval parts then undoubtedly the latter is more engaging than the former. The second half scores over its predecessor because it carries some amount of suspense throughout. It makes you wait for the moment when you breathe a sigh of relief, whereas the first half was more or less like a docu-drama focusing only on certain important dates from Veerappan's life. It didn't excite the audience as much as a biopic should have done.
Final verdict
Vana Yuddham suffers due to bad dubbing, muted and cut scenes despite extraordinary performances by Arjun and Kishore.