"An out-and-out comedy entertainer with a superfluous storyline" is the best description for director C. Moorthy's latest Pasupathi-Jyothirmayi starrer Vedigundu Murugesan! Comedy king Vadivelu's spectacular solo performance as a thief called Alert Arumugam is the one and only impressive factor in Vedigundu Murugesan, which is a major disappointment story-wise. As a matter of fact, if Vadivelu's role is deleted, the film would just remain a pointless play, one that you would never associate with a Pasupathi film!
The film revolves around Vedigundu Murugesan (Pasupathi), a cunning, local water supplier who looks after a mentally-challenged girl Ponni. Murugesan has lots of bad habits that often land him in some petty cases in the police station. But whenever Murugesan is produced before the court, he manages to escape with minor fines, since the judge (Nirmala Periyasami) has a soft corner towards Murugesan as he selflessly takes care of Ponni.
A new lady police constable (Jyothirmayi) is transferred to the local police station; she initially locks horns with Murugesan because of his criminal record and local notoriety. When she comes to how Murugesan adopted Ponni, who was forsaken by her family due to her mental handicap, Jyothirmayi starts admiring and then loving him. The story takes a twist when Ponni is raped by villain's brother and the rapist accidentally kills himself during his fight with Murugesan. Now the villain is after Murugesan's head. How he tries to conciliate the villain forms the rest of the film.
The major drawback of the film? In an effort to experiment with a new way of storytelling laced with complete comedy throughout the show, the makers have messed up the entire presentation between what is comedy and what is not comedy! When one comes out of the theatre and rethinks what the makers were trying to say, one realizes that they were trying to just amuse rather than deliver a story with substance.
The second weak link is the characterization. Though Pasupathi and Jyothirmayi have done their roles fairly well, the film falls short because of poor characterization of two major characters: the villain and Ponni. Vedigundu Murugesan's villain always reminds us of funny character of a cartoon show and thus, does not make any impact on the audience. Ponni is the sentimental and central point of the film, but the makers have given little or no importance to her emotions and gestures. Ponni standing idle is simply overshadowed by the other characters.
The plus point, besides comedy by Vadivelu, is music by Dheena. All songs are good and among them, 'Ninda duram pokum pathai' is worthy of praise. Choreography is average. There is little to praise about the technical aspects of this film produced by M. Senthil Kumar and V. Ganesh for Annamalai Films. In short, Vedigundu Murugesan is an average damp squib and turns out to be a one-man show of comedian Vadivelu!
