Is this movie a 'Vasool Raja' at the Box Office?. Review on Vasool Raja Mbbs Movie

Vasool Raja MBBS - UthHeaven Movie Review

Many producers think that remakes are a safe bet than new storylines as far as masala movies is concerned. This year can be named as the year of remakes due to the fact that so many super hits have been borrowed from other languages. Recently Ghilli went on to break box office records just like its original Okkadu in Telugu.

Director Sharan who has given some super hits like Amarkalam and Gemini has roped in the Universal Actor Kamal Hasan for the remake of Munnabhai M.B.B.S. Titled Vasool Raja M.B.B.S. this commercial comedy entertainer is being produced by Gemini Film Circuit. As usual the question in everyone's mind is about the quality of the remake. Is it in equal quality with its original? Read on folks as we analyze the pro's and con's of a remake.

Vasool Raja is about Raja Raman played by Kamal Hasan. He runs away from his family and in Chennai becomes a good hearted goon who helps in settling money matters for all kinds of people. He is helped by Vaddi played by Prabhu and they have a big gang. All is well but whenever his parents visit him Vasool Raja becomes Dr. Raja Raman and this drama goes on successfully until one fateful meeting between Raja's parents Nagesh and Dr.Prakashraj.

Prakashraj breaks out the truth about Raja Raman to Nagesh who in turn gets heartbroken and decides to leave his son once for all. At this juncture Nagesh and Kamal leave their stamp as far as emotional scenes are concerned. Vasool Raja vows to take revenge on Dr.Prakash Raj who incidentally is the dean of SLR institute of Medical sciences.

Vasool Raja with the help of his gang gets into the medical college thanks to Dr. Margabandhu played Crazy Mohan. Then on we get to see some interesting scenes in the medical college cum hospital where Vasool Raja studies. His actions at first irritates everyone but slowly he infuses the magic of love and smile in the minds of nurses, cleaners and doctors. Slowly he becomes the darling of all including his classmates. We then head off to a clichéd climax where Dr.Prakash Raj finally realises the mistake he has been doing all along. He changes his mind after seeing the emotions of a man paralyzed for the past 12 years, he was cured by Vasool Raja's magic medication. Vasool Raja then gets his much loved prize and that is Pappu.

Oops! we forgot to mention about Dr. Janaki alias Pappu (Sneha) who is the daughter of the dean Prakashraj. Vasool Raja mistakes her as the culprit but later on starts to love her deeply but in spite of so many scenes and two duets (which the original featured only one) this pairing is not good enough to romance. The on screen chemistry is almost nil. Sneha has done her part especially in the climax but her character is not that well scripted. Gracy Singh was better. Speaking of characterization, Vasool Raja (Kamal) dominates the proceedings and in the process all other characters get ignored. Prabhu gets lesser screen time when compared to Arshad Warsi who did the same character in the original. Prakash Raj as the half eccentric Dean is no match to Boman Irani who did the same character in the original.

Totally the characterisation of Vasool Raja MBBS revolves just around one person, namely Kamal Hasan who is claimed to be the Universal Hero (when it comes to calling him 'Universal' - we should take sometime thinking about Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks and comparing Kamal with them). Kamal can be rightly said that he is one of the best actors of Indian Cinema. The other characters dont impress much and we can say most of them are not appropriate selections for the role. It's Kamal, Kamal and Kamal in the movie. This is the major plus and the minus point of the movie. He dominates others not by his performance but his screen presence time and too much talking. Some of the scenes when comparing to the original makes us feel that Kamal and Prakashraj had done some amount of what we call overacting.

Kamal comes thru unscathed. The Madras lingo has been mastered by him and he is well aided by Crazy Mohan's dialogues. But the lingo reminds us of his performance in Pammal K.Sambandham which we can positively say was a far better movie than this one. Many of the scenes in this movie reminds us of Kamal's previous movies, like P.K.S, Tenali and the interview and mourning scenes in Virumandi. Added to this, the songs tuned by Bharadwaj are not up to the earlier standards. The item number which is indeed sexy has much more exposure than that was found in S.J.Surya's New and it is used as for a reason and that reason is quiet interesting?! But this in no way helps the dragging second half which at times doesnt make us feel that emotional.

Apart from that the background score also disappoints. No big work for camera man and other technicians but the art director has done his part by providing some good sets for the hospital scenes. Director Sharan could have done better with the screen play. The story is being remade and he could have made sure that each comedy scene gets enough time to be enjoyed. He has done a fair job. We were expecting Sharan to do a better job, for his Jay Jay - an excellent remake of the hollywood hit Serendipity was a worthy one and was a commercial success at the box office too.

So when it comes to comparison with the original. Sanjay Dutt, Boman Irani and Arshad Warsi stole the show in Munnabhai, but in Vasool Raja it is only Kamal Hasan who does that. This comparison is unavoidable and when the remake is not all tampered from the original we expect almost a similar impact like the original. This expectation is the big minus point as far as remakes are concerned. So we can say very clearly that this remake does not upstage the original but it is indeed a good comic masala movie.

If you are looking for the best comedy movies from Kamal then we recommend you to watch his previous superhits like Avvai Shanmughi (an 'inspiration' of Mrs.Doubtfire), Sathi Leelavathi (an 'inspiration' of She Devil), Magalir Mattum (an 'inspiration' of 9 To 5), Panchathanthiram (an inspiration of 'Very Bad Things') and Anbe Sivam (an 'inspiration of Planes, Trains and Automobiles) which had both comedy and emotional moments. Kamal Hasan has always converted his inspirations from Hollywood Movies to Super Hits in Kollywood but this time the Bollywood inspiration doesnt entertain the Kollywood audience much!

We doubt that this movie would be a 'Vasool Raja' at the box office breaking the records of this year's blockbuster hits till now - Autograph and Ghilli. The movie, we predict would do average business at the box office like Kamal's pongal release 'Virumandi' (Chandiyar). Munnabhai MBBS which was far better from the Universal Hero's Vasool Raja MBBS was the greatest box office hit of the year of release but the same cant be told about the tamil version. A Blockbuster hit has been remade to be an average hit. This we feel mainly is because the original had a very good cast selection and very natural performances.

The tamil version doesnt move us much with the emotional scenes and doesnt make us laugh much with the comedy scenes. The movie could have been made a blockbuster hit in tamil too if it had had the right cast to play the roles. We would have like to have seen Vikram in Kamal's role, Vivek in Prabhu's role with K.S.Ravikumar as the director making some touches here and there taking care of the screenplay and Deva composing the music. K.S.Ravikumar is suggested because we are 100% confident on him delivering a movie with both comedy and sentiments at its best.

APPLAUSE : Kamal, Crazy Mohan and some of the College Scenes

AHEM! : Kamal, Songs, Sloppy Characterization and Screenplay