Yaakai starts with a murder and trails on with the investigation sequence lead by Prakash Raj. The murder and its methods make the movie a bit more interesting. The investigation scenarios look pretty cool, thanks to Prakash Raj and Singam Puli. When we are kept busy with this investigation saga, we are thrown into a generic love story based in Coimbatore. The romantic portions look pretty cool that the years of Tamil Cinema watching tells us that the end of that story would not be that happy. And we are not wrong. Then the movie starts switching between these love saga and investigation scenes and the movie starts becoming a nightmare.
Actually, it is the end that makes Yaakai worthy of its money. Yuvan’s songs are what makes us sit through major love scenes. Yuvan’s BGM stands out too. Yuvan has proved that his voice carries the magic that will make you cry if he sings in a particular way. The emotional scenes towards the latter half of the movie are elevated to a greater extent thanks to Yuvan’s voice and music.
The cuts or the transitions between these two lines of stories (investigation and romantic bits) doesn’t get together. Not one bit. Added we are given nonlinear editing for the romantic portions that looks a bit gross on screen. The point or the scene where the investigation line of the movie meets the cute couple forms the interval block and that is well executed too.
The movie has its own share of both strong and weak portions. Weak portions being the artificiality that is thrown in abundance in villain’s charisma. Initial scenes with Swathi and Krishna tries to be super cute but they are actually NOT.
Strong portions being the investigation saga, attitude that Prakash Raj carries. Love in its final days. Although the funeral portion looks forced, it does its job effectively. Your heart does skip a beat in emotional sequences, thanks again to Yuvan’s voice.
The stretch where the protagonist tries to earn his money to gift his girlfriend is very much appreciable and is touching. Although the execution looks pretty bad, the concept is very much commendable that we start ignoring that. The same applies to the heart touching scenes that come towards the end.
Had there been a little more effort in writing, especially had the transitions been swift, the movie would have worked out big time. Amateurishness in writing is evident although the screen glows colorfully in every frame.
Guru Somasundaram although he works his heart out to be a US return there are scenes where we completely buy him as an NRI and also there are scenes where we question his casting.
Johnny in Madras plays a little role here but most of the college scenes with Krishna looks so out of place. M.S.Bhaskar and G.Marimuthu seem lost in the large frame.
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