Vedalam

Plot

Ganesh(Ajith Kumar) and his sister Thamizh(Lakshmi Menon) come to settle down in Kolkata where she has enrolled for a course to hone her artistic skills. Ganesh is an extremely peace loving soft hearted person who makes even rowdies like Kolkata Kaali(Rajendran) like him in one instant. Kolkata is also the operating base of a high profile international criminal syndicate run by three brothers Rahul (Rahul Dev), Abhinay(Kabir Duhan Singh) and Aniket(Aniket Chauhan). Ganesh advised by his new house owner(Mayilswamy) starts working under Laxmidas(Soori) who owns a Taxi company.

Cops in Kolkata ask Taxi and Auto drivers for help in nabbing criminal members of Rahul's gang and prepare a suspect list. Ganesh identifies one of the suspects and informs the police about the where abouts of the criminals which leads to a large haul of illegal weapons, drugs, money and also arrest of many of lower level gang members belonging to Rahul. Frustrated Aniket finds Ganesh and brings him to his Yacht to be killed, but is instead killed by Ganesh who becomes extremely violent during the altercation. Simultaneously Ganesh gets acquainted with Swetha(Shruti Hassan) and Swetha's brother Arjun(Ashwin) gets acquainted with Thamizh in two separate incidents and they are attracted to each other and Arjun gets his parents to meet and officially ask for Thamizhs hand in marriage.

Abhinay who gets to know about his younger brothers death comes to Kolkata and tries to find the murderer using a highly sophisticated technical team who track the GPS of the mobile which were in the area. As the final trace emerges it is found that Ganesh has infiltrated the building where Abhinay had set up camp. Ganesh after a violent fight with the gangsters kills everyone in the building and receives Rahuls call and informs him about the murder while all this has been witnessed by Swetha. Swetha rushes to stop the engagement of his brother but is stopped by Ganesh who reveals his history of being Vedalam, a notorious history sheeter in Chennai who was shown affection by Thamizh and his parents even though he vacated them out of their own house for money. Thamizh gets entangled in a flesh trade kidnapping scandal under Abhinay and is rescued by Ganesh but also incurs injury impacting her memory. Her parents are also murdered during this incident. Ganesh brings her to Kolkata to take revenge and also to enroll her into the best arts college in the country which is present there.

Rahul who coincidentally gets help from Thamizh to sketch out the suspect kidnaps her and thus ensues a final take down fight with Ganesh. Ganesh is able to hide his true violent self from Thamizh and also kill Rahul thus exacting his revenge and keeping his sister safe.

Development

After the success of their previous collaboration Veeram (2014), Siva announced that he would direct Ajith Kumar again in May 2014, with the planned venture announced to begin after the completion of Ajith Kumar's prior commitments with his ongoing film, Yennai Arindhaal (2015). Siva worked on the script in Bangalore and approached corporate companies, including PVP Cinemas, to produce the film, though eventually A. M. Rathnam announced that he would finance the production. The production of the film was briefly delayed because Ajith Kumar wanted to spend time with his pregnant wife following the completion of his other film. Anirudh Ravichander was signed to compose the film's music and background score, while Vetri and Ruben were announced as the film's cinematographer and editor respectively. The film developed without a title, before it was confirmed that it would be titled as Vedalam in September 2015.

In late 2014, Hansika Motwani denied reports which had suggested she had also signed on to appear in the film. The producers entered discussions to finalise the cast and crew of the film during early 2015, with Shruti Haasan and Kabir Duhan Singh signed on in March to portray the leading actress and antagonist, respectively. The role of Ajith's sister in the film took considerably longer to finalise, with several actresses approached to portray the character. Actresses Sri Divya, Nithya Menen and Bindu Madhavi all turned down the opportunity, with the latter citing she was only interested in playing the lead actress opposite Ajith. After further unsuccessful negotiations with Parvathy Nair, actress Lakshmi Menon was signed on to play the role of Ajith's sister in the film in April 2015. Soori joined the film's cast soon after production began, after replacing Santhanam in the film who became busy with his own productions. Ashwin was also added to the cast to portray a supporting role in late May 2015.

Filming

An official launch was held on 9 April 2015, with scenes intermittently shot for the rest of the month. The first official schedule began shoot in Navalur, Chennai with scenes featuring Ajith and Lakshmi Menon entering a college being canned. Subsequent scenes were shot around sets in Chennai throughout June 2015, with Kabir Duhan Singh joining the shoot, while a song resembling a 'pooja bhajan' was shot featuring Ajith, Lakshmi and actor Mayilswamy. The team then moved to Kolkata and scenes were canned featuring Shruti Haasan as a lawyer and Ajith as a taxi driver, with images from the shoot being leaked on social networking sites. The unit then moved to shoot a song sequence in Milan, Italy featuring Ajith and Shruti Haasan.

The team returned to Chennai in August 2015 to film night scenes and action sequences, with actor Rahul Dev joining the team for the shoot, while scenes were also shot at Ramee Mall. A final schedule was held at Mohan Studios in Chennai, with Ajith Kumar portraying cropped hair, resembling his look from his earlier film, Red (2002). The team finished production in mid-October 2015 after completing patch-up work on a song. Ajith was injured during the final day of shoot, prompting a minor delay in the shoot. Despite his injury, Ajith began dubbing for the film immediately, in order to ensure that the film would release to coincide with the festival of Diwali in November 2015.

Soundtrack

Music is composed by Anirudh Ravichander collaborating for first time with Ajith Kumar and Siva.

Marketing

The film's title and first look poster were reported to be revealed in September 2015, on Ganesh Chaturthi which didn't happen. On 23 September, Ajith's manager Suresh Chandraa officially confirmed via Twitter that the title and the first look will release on that night. At 12:00 am, the film's first look and title was released which confirmed the title 'Vedalam'. Behindwoods commented on the film's first look, "Ajith wears a super cool red kurta with short trimmed hair, a trim stubble, to go with a metal bracelet in one of the hands and a big stud in his left ear. A look that takes us back to his 'Red' days".

The film's teaser was released on 8 October 2015. By amassing 50,000 likes in one hour from the time it was made public, it created a new record in the history of YouTube set previously by Taylor Swift's Bad Blood.

Release

Vedalam acquired a U certificate without any cuts from the Censor Board officials. The satellite rights of the film were sold to Jaya TV. Vedalam's Tamil Nadu rights were sold to Jazz Cinemas for 33 crores.

Critical reception

Sify gave the film an "average" verdict and stated that "Vedhalam is Ajith's one man show and it might enthrall his ardent fans for others, it's a formulaic film with lot of enjoyable moments." Indiaglitz rated 3 out of 5, stating that "Vedalam is an enjoyable mass entertainer." Avinash Gopinath of Filmibeat gave the film 3.5/5 stars and concluded, "Though this movie suffers from logical loopholes and melodramatic sequences, it gets saved by Ajith and director Siva's propaganda that puts human values before money, which makes Vedalam watchable." Behindwoods rated the film 2.5 out of 5, stating, "Vedalam – Sparks do fly but not frequently enough." M. Suganth of The Times of India rated the film 3/5 and called it "a packaged mass entertainer for Ajith fans and family audiences".