Appearances can be highly deceptive. In Veduvan, we first meet Sooraj (Kanna Ravi), an actor who is notoriously known for meddling and altering his scripts. The scene then shifts to him donning the role of a dishevelled, poverty-stricken beggar named Arun to conduct an encounter. Sanjeev Venkat plays a feared ‘dada’ but has an unseen mushy side to his heart, obscured by the blood and violence of his life. Shanthi (Vinusha Devi), a happy-go-lucky college student, has a deep strength that helps her tolerate immense pressure. Even before the social media era, people held a mask to their faces to hide their many personalities. Veduvan gives a peek into the lives of many such people in a plot that showcases the blind spots to police encounters and undercover officers but fails to even meet half of its potential in exploring these grey areas.
Cast: Kanna Ravi, Vinusha Devi, Sanjeev Venkat, Sravnitha Srikanth, Aishwarya Raghupathi, Lavanya and Rekha Nair
Director: Pavan
Streaming on: ZEE5
With crisp, 20-minute-long episodes, the series seems too eager to move its plot to the central point but at the same time takes multiple pages to reach the destination. The creators seem to have built the story from a threadbare plot straight out of a moral science textbook. The narrative's simplicity is reminiscent of such literature, neglecting the frustrating reality that real-world scenarios are awfully more complex than random Ram or Sita references—a depth that the makers have barely dipped their feet into.
Kanna Ravi's Sooraj wants to play a police officer after dreaming about being a perfect fit for the role. The next day, a director arrives at his doorstep asking him to take on the role. How serendipitous can it get? Each episode ends with the camera staying too long on its protagonists' faces, mistaking it for a cliffhanger. There is no dearth of screenplay conveniences as well—if the script demands a conflict, it arrives just in time for the next scene. Cliches are also aplenty here, with the bad guys named Royapuram Ravi, Kadaikuppam Guna and so on.
While Kanna Ravi steers the ship, channelling all his energy into the show through his evocative performance as an undercover officer grappling with a sudden dilemma, Sanjeev and Vinusha’s limited screen time doesn’t allow them to shine despite resting on roles that have space to do so. We can also see Arun as an astute officer, but we barely get a few scenes that showcase his talent. Sanjeev as Aadhinadhan is the most compelling anti-hero the Tamil OTT space has seen in a long time, and the role suits him perfectly. He’s far from the typical villain we’re used to. However, due to the ineffective screenplay, justice is served to neither of these characters except for the lead.
It’s also a welcome change to see a web series focused on a singular plot point rather than taking on many and trying (and often failing) to join them effectively towards the climax. There are also no uneasy first meetings, corny romantic portions or unnecessary comedy arcs in it, making Veduvan a fairly engaging and easy-to-consume popcorn television show. However, its themes are lost in an overly simplified plot that is too afraid to test the depth of the waters. This is especially disappointing for a series that wants to discuss the ethical conundrums and misuse of police encounters, a topic that is rarely discussed in the creative space. It offers close to nothing to audiences as the messaging hangs in an imbalance, failing to take a solid stance.
Veduvan works as a mini-series at best and underlines the problem areas with a highlighter for newbies, but the truth it promises to tell is scattered without aim between the hunter, the hunted, and the audience.