Chakravarthy (Manchu Manoj) is a guy who aspires to be rock star instead of joining the army like his father. Cable Raju (Allu Arjun) is a happy-go-lucky cable operator who dreams of hitting the jackpot by marrying a rich girl.
Saroja (Anushka) is a prostitute who, tired of being exploited by the pimp, decides to move out and be on her own in Hyderabad.
Raheemulla Khureshi (Manoj Bajpai) is a Muslim who after being ill-treated and wronged by the Hindus, plans to shift base to the Gulf.
Ramulu (Nagayya) is an old weaver who along with his daughter-in-law comes to the city to sell her kidneys and use the money to fund his grandson’s education.
Vedam is about these five characters who happen to meet due to various circumstances. How the incidents in the city affect the lives of each of these characters forms the rest of the story.
There are five independent stories that are interwoven in the movie. They run parallel without any connection with each other for most of the film. As such, there is a no single hero or heroine and director Krish needs to be applauded for this brave attempt.
Allu Arjun has a sizeable role among the actors and he perfectly fits the role of the jolly cable operator. Just like in his previous movie Varudu, he doesn’t get a chance to shake a leg and display his dancing prowess.
Anushka is OK in her role as a prostitute, but one can’t help feeling that she is underutilised. Manchu Manoj is decent in the role of rock star and so is Lekha Washington who plays his friend.
Manoj Bajpai excels as the Muslim who is repeatedly targetted by the Hindus in the society. Nagayya who plays the old man who comes to the city along with his daughter-in-law offers a good performance.
Music by M M Keeravani is decent. The songs definitely won’t leave you in a trance on the first hearing but will grow on you if you listen to them a couple of times. It is refreshing to note that most of the songs are situational and are not forcefully fit into the movie.
The movie is definitely a pathbreaking attempt by director Krish and he does it well. The fact that he successfully deals with a variety of issues like Hindu-Muslim conflicts in the society, exploitation of the poor by the money-lenders and the lives of prostitutes in a single movie bears testimony to this fact.
The movie however does get slow at times and might not find favour with the regular Telugu movie buff who is quite used to item songs, comedy tracks and dishum dishums.
The Telugu film industry needs more movies like Vedam which deal with the issues happening in the society instead of the clichéd and routine love stories or ‘I trash the goons to save the society’ kind of movies. Watch this movie for it might be sometime before there is another refreshing and genuine attempt of this kind.
Critic: Raghu Chaitanya
Comments
0 comment