Laadam

A month before when I saw the promotional stills of a film named ‘Ladam’ and when I saw the posters of the particular film, which highlighted the glamour scenes of heroine, I though it was a malayalam dub version of a telugu film. Two factors made me think like it since this is the time of remakes here and moreover the actress of the film is Charmi. (After acting in ‘Kattuchembakam’, she flew to Hyderabad and then started acting in telugu movies). I failed to identify the hero also, since he was a new face and moreover he has got some similarity with the body language of Ravikrishna (‘7G Rainbow Colony’ fame). Anyway such a misjudgment regarding movies has never happened in my life. After few days, I recognize the truth only when I read the director’s name as Prabhu Solomon. He has given different films like ‘Kokki’ starring Karan and ‘Lee’ (inspired from hindi movie ‘Iqbal’) starring Sibiraj.

The opening scene of the film itself gives us the mood. The film presented in bluish tint gradient style is different; it tells the story of Chennai ruled by two underworld dons. Kota Sreenivaasa Rao (‘Sami’ fame) and Jayaprakash played those roles respectively. The second gang kills the first gang leader’s son, thus the latter wants to take revenge on the former by taking the pledge to kill his rival’s son within 16days. At that time, the hero (new face Aravindan) reaches the city for an interview. He stayed in his friend’s house. He reaches the hands of first gang, when asked to let him free, the gang leader assign the job of killing his enemy’s son to him. The cool hero reaches the rival gang and told the truth, they tried to kill him. He escaped from them and how he manages to spend those days and whether he got succeeded in his job is the story of ‘Laadam’ deals with.

In between he meets the heroine. Being an orphan, this naughty girl spends her life by doing different things. At night, she enters those houses without owners and spends there. Though her situations and surroundings felt non realistic, it is created in a humorous way. We can see her mimicking various actors from MGR to Vadivelu. She gives the support to hero in finishing his job. In the end their romance is told through a song (those glamour stills were only highlighted here in posters, giving a wrong information to us; but we are lucky that such a tamil film without any big star cast is also releasing here).

The film won’t make you boring. Moreover it will make you more interested since the script writer- director had conveyed through the scenes that this is the story happening within 16days. The performance of the new hero Aravindan is good. He doesn’t have the body weight necessary for a real hero, but the character is modulated in such a way that we will like the innocence in his character. Charmi is charming and her animated nature gives her domination over the hero in some scenes. Some of her comedy scenes can make you restless, since you are watching an action movie. Kota Sreenivasa Rao as performed in his usual style.

Cinematographer Sukumar and Editor Harsha had worked excellently to give the real action mood to this movie which does not have big action sequences. Music director Dharan had given good rerecording and some fast remix numbers here. The director of the film Prabhu Solomon needs special mention to make this film an entertainer without many artists.

‘Laadam’ is a time pass for those who love action oriented films.

Rating : 3.5 / 5