Vizhithiru review: Director Meera Kathiravan's film not engaging enough

Director Meera Kathiravan's second Tamil film, Vizhithiru, has an interesting story which basically revolves around four incidents happening in different parts of the city on the same night. The director has previously directed Aval Peyar Tamilarasi (2010) in Tamil and Bommalata (2012) in Telugu.

As fate would have it, the prime characters involved in all four incidents eventually get to meet each other at one point in the story and even have to work together to save their lives. 

It is late at night and Muthukumar (Krishna Kulasekaran), a man of limited means, makes his way to a cellphone shop to buy a cellphone for his sister before heading back home to his hometown to meet his elderly mother and sister. Unfortunately, at the store, he finds that his pocket has been picked. With no money left to even buy another ticket to his hometown, he calls a friend for help. 

As bad luck would have it, the friend is out of town. However, he asks Muthu to visit another person who owes him money. Muthu meets this person, but learns that the man, a call taxi driver, too has no money. However, he lends one of his cabs on a temporary basis to Muthu and asks him to drive a passenger to his destination to make some money. Muthu agrees and picks up a journalist (SPB Charan) in the cab and makes his way to the destination, a posh but lonely structure on the outskirts.. 

At exactly the same time, in another part of the city, Chandrababu (Vidharth), a burglar-cum-pickpocket is busy breaking into the house of a colonel (Thambi Ramaiah). On entering the house, which is forlorn, he finds Saroja Devi (Dhansika), a young girl decked in gold jewellery tied to a chair. She tells him that she is a maid and that her master, an old man, has married her against her wishes. She urges him to rescue her and he agrees.

A few streets away, a visually-impaired dubbing artiste (Venkat Prabhu) is in an auto along with his young daughter (Baby Sara) frantically searching for a lost pup. His adamant child refuses to head back home without the dog and the poor man is helpless as he can't see. While trying to look for the dog, misfortune strikes again as the child is lured away by a notorious gang involved in trafficking.

While the rest of the world is struggling to make ends meet, in a costly resort in Pondicherry, the son of a wealthy industrialist is busy partying away his birthday. A spoilt brat who takes great pride in being able to buy whatever he chooses to, Vicky Vishwanath (Rahul Bhaskaran) is having a gala time when he spots a girl (Erica Fernandes) who catches his eye. He immediately tries to impress her but the smart girl, sensing his intentions, keeps him at bay. He says he can impress her, but only if he has more time. She chooses to give him time and says she is to travel to Chennai and that he can accompany her and that he has time till they reach Chennai to impress her. Vicky agrees and the two begin to drive back to Chennai...

At one point, all these characters meet under life-threatening circumstances. What happens then is what Vizhithiru is all about.

Director Meera Kathiravan is a reasonably good director who can make sensible films. The manner in which he tries to make socially relevant points in a subtle fashion through each of these four incidents, which then culminate into a common climax is praiseworthy. However, the film is not gripping enough. This is primarily because some of the sequences either look a little too far fetched or seem totally unnecessary. Also, the film has some flaws which are far too evident to go unnoticed. 

For instance, a fleeing child looking to get away from notorious thugs, who take away her school bag, suddenly manages to get back her bag in a subsequent scene. There are quite a few scenes like this one that make the film seem less serious.

The film has some good performances. Vidharth as Chandrababu, Krishna as Muthukumar, Dhansika as Saroja and SPB Charan as the journalist play their parts convincingly. 

The camera work of both Vijay Milton and RV Saran is commendable and Sathyan's music is just about okay. On the whole, Vizhithiru is a valiant effort but it could have been so much more better, if the editing had been tighter.