Vaathi:

Vaathi does engage the audience with few interesting arcs, smartly written and staged scenes. Schools which are supposed to provide education have become money making centers with the motto that one needs to pay to get good education. Vaathi smartly contrasts this with the movie hall (aptly named Lakshmi) which becomes a place for our protagonist to teach his students. Lakshmi and Saraswathi have swapped places. This arc is well developed, a round of applause for the writer and the director. Appreciated the creativity when the protagonist uses his brains to resolve the crises like the need that breaks the barriers between hierarchical groups. Yes, the issues get resolved in a scene in movies but here we buy into it because of the way it is staged. Liked the mythological reference in the hand pump sequence, in a different movie it would have come across as a melodrama but in Vaathi it works thanks to Dhanush’s performance and the director not amplifying the emotion. The protagonist’s solution towards the climax, take the money and sign the contract, comes across as problematic but makes sense from his point of view. With all these pluses as a whole Vaathi doesn’t come together though. The fights don’t fit in with the hero’s character arc, a smart person who uses logical brain. Without any build-up Bharathiar getup comes out of the blue and misses the mass impact. Samuthirakani’s villain character ends up as one dimensional except for the initial creativity the character shows that sets the movie premise. Rest of the schemes he uses to silence Vaathi gives us a yawn. Dhanush with his performance makes us buy in to his character and holds the movie together. Vaathi falls in the bucket of movies that could have reached its full potential and be a better movie with few more rewrites.

Don:

Did I say two movies earlier? Erase that…Don is two movies in one…till interval it is an aimless comedy and post interval it gets serious with the message taking us through a manipulative emotional drama. As long as it stays in the comedy zone, I found it bearable even with only few jokes that lands. Once it gets into the serious zone flaws in the character arcs show up and we feel the laziness in the writing. Father who comes across as a control freak and abusive – he publicly beats Don, admonishes him, burns the certificates, never speaks in appreciation of him – turns out be a man with a golden heart. With no hints given, Don’s mother lists the sacrifices done by his father with the sole aim to manipulate audience. Director isn’t satisfied with the mother mentioning Don’s father walked without slippers, we are shown a close-up shot. SJ Surya’s character comes across as a caricature for most of the movie but towards the end he surprises us with the change in his behavior, which is explained away in one dialogue. Like many other movies, director starts with an interesting premise, children shouldn’t be forced into something they don’t fit in, and the parents and education institutions need to be flexible enough to let them explore and find their talent, but he fails in the writing department. Don falls in the bucket of movies where actor’s charms (Sivakarthikeyan in Don) and a good message isn’t enough to engage the audience.