Director: Chakri Toleti
When you have a successful franchise
in your hand that had survived three decades of viewership, any maker would want
to expand the frontiers. While his counterpart in the Don series moved forward
with the story, the Ultimate Star of tamil films decided to tread on a
different path, that of going back in time to tell the genesis story of David
Billa (the tamil version of Don). While
an origin story usually stresses on the formative days of the titular character,
with Billa, the urge to see the history of the much revered Don surmounts thanks
to the insufficient material available on the reclusive gangster.
But five minutes into the movie,
with the best dialogue of the trailer wasted terribly, I suspected dreadful
times await me. As it happened, after 2 long hours, Billa-2 stood as a testament
that any film, no matter how good a star you have in it, how tech-savvy &
creative technicians you involve in it, will only be as good as the creative vision
of the director at the helm of affairs.
The problem I had with Billa-2 is
not that it couldn’t justify the hunger for violence of the protagonist; we have
after all welcomed many a maniacs who just want the world to burn. I didn’t even
mind the fact that the film was monotonously only about the escalation of a rampant
man. Hell, I could even tolerate a plump hero whip and win over his masculine
enemies in a jiffy. But the issue really
was about the convincing factor deployed in it. You really can’t make an action
movie with the action sequences being its weakest link. From the opening
sequence fight, till the much talked about helicopter fight scene, nowhere was
the violent rage that seeps out of David Billa’s face could fill the screen space.
As a result we are only able to see computer generated blood bursting out of
the cadaver even before the knife touches it.
On the hindsight, with wonderful punch
lines and some well-intended scenes that ebb out of the crevice, like a much
needed crest after a long trough, Billa-2 did have it moments now and then,
making me wonder why the writers couldn’t be more diligent in the work. Had the
creators understood that taking the audience to the coda is as important as the
coda itself, Billa-2 sure would have been an adrenaline pumping movie.
Unfortunately at its present form, Billa-2 is nothing more than the 2 hours stretched
version of its 2 minutes trailer with 1 hour 48 minutes of boredom. If at all the
film answers something, it tells an origin story where a plump Ajith walks all
the way to become the trim & fit Billa in the 2007 film.
Comments