Billa 2007 - Movie Review

Billa – A BMW on a rugged road!

Ananda pictures delivers us the remake of the Rajni starrer, Billa with Ajith as the lead. Vishnuvardhan has wielded the megaphone for this elite and elegant action movie. Vishnuvardhan has made an attempt to build a stylish and sophisticated tower based in Malaysia. He hasn’t deviated too much from his blueprint ie the original Billa. Only a couple of ameliorations lie between the Rajni starrer and Ajit starrer. Being one of the most expected and awaited movie of this year, Billa 2007 has hit the screens two days after Super star’s birthday. Though a number of diverse things feed this movie making it healthy, an attack of viruses on the screenplay cells makes it a bit dull. Anyhow Ajith is back on his right track, after sitting on the fence for a while. He shines well when he has got a negative foil to his protagonist role{For instance Vaali, Samrat Ashoka,Attahasam and Godfather}. So Billa is a resplendant Beemer moving on a rugged road without leaving long lasting impressions on the track. But at the end of the day, there is nothing wrong if you take a ride on Billa.

Billa{Ajith} is an evasive Don, ruling an anti-social samrat along with his complices. Jay{Prabhu} is the DSP, assigned to cut the throat of Billa, the cut throat. But Billa with his will and skill messes up the DSP’s every single plan to get him. Billa has the habit of helping his back-stabbers to their coffins and he never trusts anybody except the person who appears on the mirror when he confronts it. He usually shares his bed but not bosom with CJ{Namitha},one of his comrades. One fine seductive day, Billa’s commander Ranjit{Aditya} brings home Saasha {Nayantara}, whom Billa appoints for her intrepidity. Another noxious day, Billa gets mortally wounded by Jay’s bullet while busy over a weapon deal. The Malaysian polis’s search to find Billa’s corpse proves to be unsuccessful, while Billa shares his last minutes with Jay and dies. To lay hands on the big boss Jagdish{suspense!} Jay trains Velu{Ajith} a petty thief in Malaysian Murugan temple to impersonate Billa. Staraight off, the Interpol officer Gokulnath arrives and shares up the Billa case with the reluctant Jay. Billa updates Jay on the whereabouts of the hoodyard birds, while a spy among the Khakis, keeps tipping Jagdish. All of a sudden Jay turns up his toes when a mysterious man puts a bullet in him. Now the only key to release Velu from the cage named Billa is lost. So take a ride to find what happened to Velu.

Vishnuvardhan hasn’t made any changes to the original storyline,but has excluded and included a few characters. The first forty minutes of the movie where Ajith plays the ruthless and venomous Billa, is extraordinary and inevitably these minutes will stay forever in Ajith’s hall of fame. He steps in as a notorious criminal, plays around like an indomitable lion and passes away like a great crusader, Kudos to Ajith & Vishnu duo. In the next place, the comic spirited Velu’s character is spun well, alongside the slapstick flavored role of Santanam. The locations chosen are unimaginably wonderful and treats the eye well.The scene sequence which explores Velu’s transmogrification into Billa is presented with Ajith’s charming humor is second to none. The song ” My Name is Billa” is a grand visual treat to the audience, we could see the class on the cloth. All the above, Ajith’s style and body language are smashing and adds 100 runs to his score. The expression change which Ajith brings after the sudden death of Namitha’s character establishes that he is still a master strokesman in dual pitches. So Billa is an action movie with no action. A punch which prevailed through the other two movies of Vishnuvardhan is missing in this one.

The movie is sustained by the Billa role in the first forty minutes and by Velu’s subtle humor for a while. After a point of time, the plot’s life becomes haywire and it becomes an orphan at the end, testing the tolerance of the audience. Though a remade movie, the director could have taken pains to modify the dialogues to make this one fresh. Adding to this,the storyline keeps you waiting and waiting and makes you whine. Since the original Billa and Don are filled with twists and turns, our mind longs for one in this too, which is not fulfilled till the very end. Nayantara, incarnates onscreen almost sans top in a few scenes pushing any other actress in glamour behind her, though she has nothing serious to do in the movie. Rahman,who appears as a Interpol officer, puts up a good show, particularly at the end. But Prabhu’s character and dialogues are the worst part of the movie. He speaks sorry blabbers throughout this stylish and luxurious movie like a character which had been taken from a totally different movie like Bharathiraja’s Mudhal Mariadhai{I ain’t demeaning Mudhal Mariadhai, but its altogether a movie on a different platform!}. Outside of this, to show Billa is a Don, the director still uses the technique of exchanging suitcases which is so funny and childish!{Vishnu sir,We are living in the 21st century}. The BGM is remarkable but three of the songs are awful, where Seval and My Name is Billa are colourful. The choreography for My Name is Billa is outstanding, patch the Seval song presents Ajith as a sluggish dancer. The climax which is intended to produce an epic of effects, fails to produce even a lyric of it. Also the movie proves to be cypher for the audience who had seen Sharukh’s Don, since this one comes nowhere near it except for Ajith’s acting.

The technical aspects of this movie are wondrous, in the lines of aesthetic movies like Vettaiyadu Vilaiyadu. The way in which the screen tone alters when the plot’s crosswire shifts from Billa to Velu is amazing, two thumbs up to Nirav Shah’s cinematography while location choosers deserve a high decibel applause. Yuvan, once again fails to call the shorts{After his crappy soundtracks for Vel and Machakkaran}. Whatsoever Billa is a good entertainer, for the audience of all sorts. So Billa says “I would like to have a bit of spice with my plate of death!”

About these ads