Movie Review: Billa 2

Prefixed with 2, this is not a sequel but a prequel to the updated version of Billa released in 2007. In the prequel, you find out the origins of David Billa(Ajith Kumar) who lands in India as a refugee after taking part in the struggles in his motherland. Despite being a refugee, Billa climbs up the hierarchy of the underworld largely due to his bravado and risk-taking behaviour. He goes from doing petty crimes to controlling drugs and arms trade.

Chakri Toleti is the director of the prequel. He also makes this a watchable fare even though they are many shortcomings. First and foremost, Chakri doesn't waste the viewers mostly (except for an unwanted song towards the end of the movie) by a structured screen play and clever editing. For instance, when the cops arrests Billa, the very next scene shows a tortured Billa  chopping away the unwanted and done-to-death scenes of police brutality. Chakri understands the limitations of his lead actor clearly and underplays it brilliantly. So there are no difficult scenes  for Ajithkumar. Instead there are more scenes where he had to look good onscreen. Finally, Chakri gets the essence of a prequel. That is why you get a fleeting glimpse of Rahman who is featured in the first part in a significant role and a gradual yet prominent change of the background score to synch with the background score of the first part.

David Billa is a criminal. So the movie features violence; a whole lot of it to be precise. But more than the violence, it is the special effects and badly executed action scenes that let you down. There are two sequences reminiscent of Hollywood movies namely Scarface and Godfather. Although the similarity to Godfather can be forgiven, more thought could have gone into the Scarface-like scene.

Ajith Kumar has to look dashing and act cold blooded. This is the easiest thing for him to do. Luckily for him, he has an apt nemesis in Vidyut Jamwal as the Russian arms dealer Dmitry. In fact, Vidyut is also the one who looks cool in the action sequences. Sadly, there aren't as many action scenes on him as much as we would love to have. Parvathy Omanakuttan ends up as a plain Jane when pitted against Bruna Abdullah and the role is both badly written and badly acted at the same time.

Although the movie is tailor made for Ajithkumar fans, it is still watchable for non-fans too because of the director's ease with the medium. If you can't stomach violence, stay away from this. Otherwise, this is a good option in the multiplex when you don't have any options and only care for escapist fare.

Language: Tamil

Genre: Action

Rating: **