So what’s wrong? The plot: now that’s truly antique. Shivshankar (Ajit) is a tycoon and his only son Vishnu (Ajit) is the apple of his eye. The old man is on a wheel chair and we are told that his wife (Kanika) died in a car accident which left him crippled. Vishnu is a happy go lucky guy who is having a ball with his group of friends (Ramesh Kanna, Suman Shetty).

Vishnu goes to Thottapuram village where he meets Divya a college student on a study tour. They soon fall in love and their wedding is fixed. But suddenly Vishnu starts showing psychiatric fits, misbehaves and even tries to shoot his father. He is admitted to a mental hospital but all this is the work of Jeeva (Ajit) a look-alike of Vishnu who has an axe to grind against Shivashankar. Post interval, in a flashback it is revealed that Jeeva is Kanika’s (now mentally challenged) son and he wants to kill his father Shivasankar for that!

The silver lining of the film is Ajit in three get-up. Pipe smoking old man in wheel chair is the best among the three. His younger days as the efferminate dancer are also well-culled out. The manner in which he walks daintily and behaves are a treat to his fans. The son characters-cool dude Vishnu and the cunning Jeeva are in typical ‘Thalai style’.

Asin has tremendous screen presence, has impeccable sense of comic timing and is a treat to watch. Kanika has nothing much to do except enacting the mad woman whimpering act. On the technical side, Varalaaru is tacky. Enough endured, Ravikumar and his inane script has let the film down. All we can say is that it gets terribly irritating and looks like the script was changed and chopped every time there was a new schedule.

The music of A.R.Rahman is disappointing and there is not even one hummable number. In the name of comedy, Ramesh Kanna, Suman Shetty and co indulges in double entendre and crude gags. On the whole, Varalaaru just does not live up to the pre-release hype and expectations.

Verdict: Average