Dhanush's Vaathi brings an important issue to the fore

Vaathi, a film by Venky Atluri, is set in the 1990s when India underwent economic liberalisation. Three contemporary students try on an outdated video cassette at the beginning of the movie, thinking it might be an erotic movie. Instead, the blurry image shows a young man doing mathematical equations on a blackboard. Surely, the young man was Dhanush, the story's central character - A mathematics vaathi (teacher).

Atluri presents each difficult issue as something that can be fixed with a motivational speech or physical confrontation by turning a story about educational reform into a one-man hero-centric narrative. If the villagers still don't get the value of education, he tells them the A.P.J. Abdul Kalam narrative. The narrative is meant to be a little slow and difficult to digest.

Even though Dhanush is his typical vibrant self, Vaathi has similar issues. His on-screen persona makes the overly dramatic scenes tolerable, but in the second half, even this is unable to prevent the movie from descending into unnecessary melodrama.

Yet when all is said and done, the much-anticipated Dhanush movie has received overwhelmingly positive reviews from both critics and audiences. It's anticipated that the movie would do well at the box office. Early estimates indicate that the movie could bring in about Rs 20 crore