Rating – ***1/2 (3.5/5)
John Abraham was repeating himself time and again in his singular media appearance pertaining to Vedaa – it is not an action film only but is much more emotionally rooted. After watching the film, you see where he is coming from you might not agree with it.
Director Nikhil Advani’s adept understanding of action and his technical prowess to make action look sleek and innovative consistently is at total display with Vedaa. Some finely choreographed and executed action scenes remind you why Advani received all the love for films like D-Day and Batla House earlier. The problem with Vedaa is there’s just too much of it, way too much of it – so much so that contradicts what Abraham said about the film being more than an action fest.
This is even more disheartening because you see the potential and flashes of genuine depth in the story – a story about caste discrimination being so rooted in several villages that even if you try to eradicate it, it isn’t going to be plucked out. Advani lends a wonderful arc about Vedaa’s (Sharvari) family being pushed, victimised, punched and bruised to insurmountable limits – thus providing Vedaa just the right amount of redemption arc that goes on till the climax of the film.
And to all the credit that the woman deserves, Sharvari is the beating heart of the film in every possible manner. She just reminds everyone what she’s capable of – she is able to look like a dream while dancing to Taras in Munjya, and here, she is able to exhibit her raw acting chops by completely go de-glam without any inhibitions. Sharvari is the female actor one needs to watch out for – and give her all the opportunities she deserves as well.
John Abraham is doing John Abraham things. You can easily see any other actor lending some gravitas while flexing his muscles and beating the shit out of people but Abraham doesn’t do that. There’s no denying that his macho personna is still likeable but there’s nothing novel about him killing and destroying other human beings after a point of time. Advani could have adopted a much simpler, much more subtle approach to how a story that is inherently disturbing makes an impact over and above the madness of consistent action. However, he doesn’t despite giving hopes that it might be.
There are layers to how Abhishek’s Banerjee’s antagonist is constantly portrayed and that helps immensely pitching him as a formidable bad guy, and the versatile actor is able to do absolute justice to it. Another special shoutout to Kshitij Chauhan, as Junior Pradhan – you actually and immensely hate him and want him to suffer, thus doing his job supremely well.
Vedaa also suffers from a sluggish pacing, and a point that is proven about an hour and a half into the film keeps dragging to stretch to another hour which seems never-ending.
But Vedaa still relies on and mostly makes powerful commentary on an issue that might seem dated but still holds relevance and hit you in the gut – just like Abraham does to a million men.