Valmiki …. Pick Pockets your heart!
C. Karthik

Cast: Akhil, Meera Nandhan, Devika
Director: G Ananthanarayanan
Music  : Ilayaraja
Producer : P Sreenivasan
Banner: Vikatan Talkies 
 
After the success of Siva Manasula Shakthi, Vikatan Talkies has come out with their next Tamil film Valmiki, directed by G Anantha Narayanan.

Old habits die hard. This is how the central character of Valmiki manifests himself in the movie. A smalltime crook, pick pocket, swindler, cheat, or whatever you want to call him is on the wrong side of the law. Life offers him many chances to change for the better, but he is not able to embrace change that comes into his life, until he has to pay a very heavy price that leaves him devastated. That’s Valmiki in short for u.

Valmiki, is all about a petty thief/pickpocket Pandi (Akhil) who steals, snatches and robs with a whim. He's perfectly happy about it, setting up bogus cinema companies, asking a host of gullible "heroes" and "heroines" for movies like "Chellam I love you". It is picturised in such a realistic fashion that you can't help laughing at the general silliness, or wince at the obvious naivete of parents who sacrifice every asset to get a girl into cinema.

In company of mates Tiger and Co, Pandi leads a fairly happy-go-lucky life, popping in and out of prisons, shown very nicely in the song Achadicha Kaasu, until the inevitable happems: he meets Vandana (Meera Nandan, debuting from Malayalam) a sweet-tempered girl.  Pandi and Vandana might have little in common, but find themselves drawn to each other, naturally (!). Meanwhile, there's a flower-seller Kanaka (Devika), a vibrant young girl who dreams everyday of walking into the plush 5-star hotel next door. There's Karuna as well, her brother, and Pandi's great friend.

As is her wont, Vandana, once she knows of Pandi's real occupation, is first horrified, and then tries valiantly to move him into the straight and narrow.

With his rustic and rugged looks, Akhil is perfect as Pandi. His diction and body language too is perfect in the pick-pocket scenes, and his turmoil about Vandana is well-depicted too.

Meera Nandan looks like she's going to be the goody-goody girl which she is, most of the time. But it's Devika, with her lofty dreams which have no hope of ever coming true, rough speech but a heart of gold who makes far greater impact.

Kudos to the art director, cinematographer N Azhagappan and director for setting the scenes for Chennai's underbelly complete with drugs, sewers and language that make it all come alive so well. You can appreciate that a great deal of detail and work has gone into them but you wish the tenor had been maintained throughout.

Though the screenplay is fairly logical, with Pandi's life changing slowly, there are moments when the moralising gets to you. The first half is racy, but post intermission, the pace slackens.

Knowing that it is Ilayaraja’s music, one had expected something more special. The background score is strangely absent at many places. Most of the songs don’t bear the Maestro’s stamp. A couple of songs Poo sirikkuthu and Kooda varuviya are pleasant.

The climax might be run of the mill but despite that and some moments of drab, this pick-pocket does stand out from the crowd