Shiva Rajkumar's milestone 125th film Vedha hit the screens in Kannada and turned out to be a big hit. The film directed by Harsha is releasing in Telugu today on 9 February 2023. Let us see how Shiva Rajkumar enthralled fans as Vedha.
Vedha movie story is all about how a father and daughter dealt with the people who wronged them and then escaped from the law using their influence. Vedha (Shiva Rajkumar) and his daughter Kanaka (Aditi Sagar) go to various places and mysterious brutal murders happen and lady police officer Raama (Veena Ponnappa) discovers that the above two are involved. Why Vedha and Kanaka going on the brutal hunting spree and how do Pushpa (Ganavi Lakshman), Rudra (Bharat Sagar), Paari (Shwetha Chengappa), Beera (Cheluvaraj), and Daya (Raghu Shivamogga) are connected to it from the rest of the story.
Shiva Rajkumar as usual showed his class and performed well showing variations in expressions accordingly. He excelled in emotional scenes and also enacted intense stunts to entertain all his fans. However, he got limited dialogues, and credit to him for having accepted the film where his role most of the time takes a backseat and allows the women characters to showcase their valor and acting talent.
Ganavi Lakshman who played the female lead, as the wife of Veera showed variations in different angles. She not only looked calm and innocent but also ferocious and at times surprises all with her breathtaking stunts. Aditi Sagar as the daughter of Veera is present throughout the film and she made her presence felt and performed well in the action sequences. Even Shwetha Chengappa, and Veena Ponappa performed elevating the scenes with their intensity. Others like Bharat Sagar, and Cheluvaraj performed showing wicked looks to make an impact.
Vedha movie story penned by director Harsha deals with child abuse and atrocities on women. He starts of the narration in an interesting manner increasing the curiosity levels among movie lovers. But with the passage of time, the narration turns routine with father and daughter going on the killing spree. Harsha tried to send a powerful message to society highlighting women's power and in the process showed all the women characters in a powerful manner weaving them around the towering presence of Shiva Rajkumar.
Shiva Rajkumar's fans may be disappointed as he did not have many dialogues but Harsha made up for it by including deadly action sequences especially ahead of the interval block and also during the climax. For all the hard work to elevate Shiva Rajkumar's heroism and power of women, the story, screenplay, and direction turn routine. The non-linear screenplay ends up confusing at times and many are of the opinion that it could have been avoided as it looked forced. It seems surprisingly the Kannada filmmakers are unable to break from the KGF affinity. Even this film has shades of KGF and there are many scenes that looked similar to KGF. The film has many illogical scenes and the director has taken cinematic liberty to drive home his message.
Swami J Gowda's cinematography is good and gave a realistic feel to the scenes and the narration along with the proceedings. The music of Arjun Janya is ok with a couple of songs well shot and foot-tapping. His background music elevated the scenes making a thumping impact. The editing of Deepu S Kumar is ok as there are a few scenes that impacted the flow of the film. The production values of Geeta Pictures are good.
Altogether, Vedha turned out to be just another routine drama. Expectations soared as Vedha happens to be Shiva Rajkumar's 125th film and he teamed with director Harsha for the fourth time. Harsha though came up with a good idea of elevating the women power and failed in his execution. His entire story turned out to be routine as there are many such films where the wronged father and daughter go on a killing spree to take revenge and get justice. Shiva Rajkumar's presence and his character are just another routine one and his heroism is not elevated in such a way that the viewers get connected to the emotions. The lack of a strong villain, though there are many turned out to be the drawback. Though Harsha tried to deal with sexual violence etc, he failed to justify or address the issue in a compelling manner. The intended message got washed in the template screenplay and direction in their quest for commercial points. Considering all these aspects, Cinejosh goes with a 2.25 rating for Vedha.