Billa……….

I can hear people screaming out there “Et tu Brutus”. I am afraid I’ve to say “Yes”. I watched the film today. Is this the review of the film? Me reviewing a film…….. No way… Let the people who are best at it do it. These are just my thoughts after watching the film.

The first thing that awestruck me was the richness in the film. Right from the introduction scene of David Billa, the mafia don, where he gets down from a black Mercedes AMG coupe till the end, the film is crammed with richness. It’s richness richness richness everywhere. In the forms of bimmers, jaguars, yachts, silk robes, couches, ray-bans, rolexes, costly sets, mind blowing locations and what more ??????????

At the intro scene I whispered to my wife, “Can I buy that car?” and she replied “Of course, only if you can cut the check for a 100K” wow………. That’s too much for me. Sometimes I feel I am poor.

For people who watched DCH way back in 2001 and still waiting for such a stylish rich film in Tamil, Billa ends their wait. Remember it's only stylish and rich and is no where near DCH. Forget DCH, it’s not even near Sharukh’s Don.

The next thing which impressed me in the film is the costumes. Director Vishnu’s wife has done a commendable job. Kudos to her. The third one is the background scoring. Yuvan rocks these days. But I should say this, he has let the songs go off…… Except “Vethalaiya Pottendi” no other song makes an impact.

The action sequences are great. The car chase and the fights over the bridge were shot extremely well and could well be a trend setter for the future Tamil films. Cinematographer Nirav Shah has done a remarkable job in those sequences.

After a long time I am seeing an action film of a big star with a script which demands the lead lady to accompany him in almost every scene. Nayanthara does a good job though only next to her predecessors Zeenat Aman, Sripriya and Priyanka Chopra. Vishnu seemed to have more confidence in Nayan's cleavages than her acting skills.

Prabhu as DSP Jai Prakash has done his job but ofcourse nothing greater than Iftikhar or Balaji or Boman Irani. The suspense factor added over Boman Irani and the surprise ending in Sharukh's Don are missing here. Vishnu has done a honest remake of the old Billa without attempting any experiments in the screenplay. However the Pran, Thengai Srinivasan, Arjun Rampal character has been trimmed in this film. Raguman comes as the interpol officer and also as villian.

I liked the sequences in which Prabhu trains Velu (Ajith). Velu's reactions and dialogues bring in some humour. Santhanam as Velu's friend also tries to stimulate our humour sense.

On the flip side, Ajith fails to create the same impact Sharukh created. It trepidates us more when the later kills the infiltrator with a golf ball than when the former kills him with a dagger. The lack of suspense factors in the screenplay makes it boring towards the end. Probably Vishnu would have thought people to expect those after watching Sharukh's Don and lack of them would itself be a suspense.

Namitha is as usual wasted. The girl who used to be with the villians in the film Pokkiri could have been used. She would have done a better job than Namitha in this film.

Twin Tower backdrop coming in every alternate scenes irritated me a lot.

After watching all the four versions of this great entertainer, I would rate them in the following way.

1. DON (Sharukh) -- For the stylish presentation and screenplay
2. DON (Amithab) -- For original screenplay
3. BILLA (Thalaivar) -- Ofcourse for Thalaivar
4. BILLA (Ajith) -- Read the post :-)

Today I needed to take care of my 5 year old nephew and when he was reluctant to watch a Tamil film in theatre I convinced him rather fooled him by saying this film was the most thrilling movie ever made in the history of the cinema. When the movie started, to my surprise, it turned out to be true. Isn't it watching a 3 hr long movie in the theatre alone most thrilling and haunting experience? I think I got ESP. What say?