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A ‘Breakdown’ Before ‘Vidaamuyarchi’: 10 Things To Know Before Watching The Ajith Movie
Supposedly based on the 1997 film titled ‘Breakdown’, Magizh Thirumeni’s version could just be the most tailor-made remake for Ajith’s superstar image.
According to a report in The Times Of India, Lyca Productions, the makers of Ajith’s Vidaamuyarchi, are said to have finally arrived at a settlement with the team of the 1997 action film Breakdown, agreeing to pay a sum of ₹ 11 crore apart from a profit percentage after release.
Comparisons with Breakdown, directed and written by Jonathan Mostow, began almost as soon as the trailer of the film dropped late last year. This was then followed by the film getting pushed from its initial Pongal release in January, allegedly after failing to arrive at a deal with Paramount Pictures, the distributors of the Kurt Russel film.
With the Tamil film finally releasing on February 6, it almost looks certain that Vidaamuyarchi will be a faithful remake. But this also leaves us with a few questions of our own. How will the 90-minute original be adapted into a 150-minute version for the Indian audience? Will the extended take involve flashbacks, additional characters or social commentary? Where are Anirudh’s superhit songs going to fit in?
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Here are some answers we arrived at after watching the Hollywood original. Watch out for spoilers:
Breakdown released in 1997 and it starred Kurt Russell playing Jeff Taylor. Every scene of the film is told from his point of view and when we meet him first, he is right in the middle of a long road trip as he and his wife Amy (Kathleen Quinlan) shift base from Boston to their new home in San Diego, cutting right through the entire breadth of the United States. The bulk of the film’s events take place in one day as they travel past dry, arid Arizona in their new red Jeep SUV.
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Very little is explained about the Taylors expect that they are probably wealthy. Taylor’s car is top of the line and the upmarket branded clothes the couple are seen wearing look starkly different from the checks and stripes that the rest of the characters sport. Other vehicles in the film are either pick-ups, trucks or police cars further adding to the notion of how the Taylors are fish out of water in this dry environment.
The ‘breakdown’ from the film’s title happens around 15 minutes into the film when their car suddenly breaks down, minutes after we see Jeff filling up at a gas station. The car is new and not out of fuel; the only explanation for why the car breaks down is that it must have been tampered with. This leaves the couple lost and helpless in the middle of the vast, open desert with the next town almost 20 miles away. What follows is a genuinely thrilling ride which involves the couple getting split with wild car chases and very few characters.
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The film enjoys a cult following to this day and it was directed by Jonathan Mostow, a man famous for coming up with some of the most elaborate action blocks of his time. For reference, Mostow would later direct Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines which was at the time the most expensive film of all time. But the highlight of the film was a major action sequence which included Arnold Schwarzenegger’s robotic T-X driving a massive crane down a street. This chase alone was said to have cost upwards of several million dollars at the time of production. Breakdown features multiple car chases in a similar mould, albeit within the more limited scope of the film and its human characters.
In fact, some of the car chases in Breakdown are so tense and tight that you’re reminded of a long action stretch in Ajith’s Valimai featuring a bus, a bunch of bikers and precious cargo, set right in the middle of a long, open highway. Breakdown’s script naturally opens itself up to both the action and emotional beats best suited for Ajith’s filmography and fanbase. Not only is the film filled with chases, but it also integrates the story of an innocent family man who is willing to go to any extent to find his missing wife. Hence the title Vidaamuyarchi or endless persistence?
But if you watch the trailer closely, you will also clearly see that the film has made changes to make the adaption more friendly to our audiences. The original, for example, is a film in which all the characters are seen sporting the same set of clothes from the first scene to the last. It is a straightforward thriller told in linear fashion without any flashbacks or jumbled timelines.
In the trailer, we see both Ajith and Trisha in what appears to be a celebration. Not only do we see them as a part of a grand party, but we also see them in a yacht later. This could be a part of a song (the only space for ‘Sawadeeka’) or it could be even a flashback as imagined by Ajith’s character after his wife goes missing. A flashback for the villain character (Rakshith) played by Arjun too seems inevitable, especially given that we see him in the costume of a prisoner.
A still from 'Vidaamuyarchi'.The film is set predominantly in Azerbaijan and the landscape of the West Asian country is like the imagery of Arizona in Breakdown. Not only is the region fresh and unexplored in our movies but it adds to the appeal of a film in which the characters are entirely unfamiliar with the terrain.
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Like the original, the lead couple appear to have been together for a long time. The dialogue from the trailer in which Ajith’s character talks about how today’s generation do not believe in fixing things, probably allude to an issue in their marriage that needs fixing. Could the “I am lost” line also could be a cry for help from a man witnessing his marriage fall apart?
This could be the one aspect in which a possible social angle can be inserted into Breakdown. All of Ajith’s recent films such as Thunivu (financial scams), Valimai (youngsters getting into crime) and Nerkonda Parvai (remake of Pink) dealt with serious social issues in some depth. With Regina Cassandra’s character playing bad guy Rakshith’s (Arjun) partner, the film even has room for it to be the story of two distraught couples at either ends of a good versus evil battle line. Come February 6 and we’ll find out of if Magizh Thirumeni’s interpretation of the 1997 film was worth the persistence, or if it will break down in the middle of nowhere.