Purampokku Engira Podhuvudamai Movie Review
Director: SP Jananathan
Cast: Vijay Sethupathi, Arya, Shaam, Karthika Nair
Conveying communism ideologies in commercial cinema is director SP Jananathan's style and his recent film Purampokku Engira Podhuvudamai is no exception.
Balusamy (Arya) and Kuyili (Karthika Nair) are communist comrades who fight for people but according to the law they are terrorists. As Indian government is depositing wastes through weapons, Baalu decides to create awareness by attacking the Indian military as a suicide bomber(??) Unfortunately his mission fails and the Delhi court sentences him with capital punishment. He is handed over to Macaulay (Shaam) and is brought to Chennai prison.
Macaulay is a smart police officer who believes that capital punishment is the only way to eradicate criminals in the country. And now he is looking for an experienced hangman, when Yemalingam (Vijay Sethupathi) is introduced. Yemalingam comes from a family of hangmen and is a drunkard who has his own psychological fear to hang prisoners. He joins hands with Kuyili after hearing various stories of Balusamy's past to sketch an escape plan for Baalu. Does their plan succeed, is what the film is all about.
As usual SP Jananathan's dialogues are splendid, he casually spill all his communism ideologies in every possible scenes but as the concept of the film itself is universal, the execution should have been top notch and flawless but here things are progressively poor and amateurish.
The first half of the film moves at snail pace as Jananathan introduce his characters through songs, long lectures and some stupid scenes set in Ladakh and Rajasthan. But the screenplay is not interesting enough to connect all those ideas written on paper. Not just the screenplay, the film faces some serious logical loopholes, to point out Arya's escape plan and way he goes about it is not convincing.
Among all the three lead actors, Vijay Sethupathi is top notch as he steals the show with his comic one liner and often elevates the energy level of this middling movie. Arya's character of Balusamy is a powerful one but sadly his body language and dialogue delivery fails to impress. It is a terrific opportunity for Karthika Nair who sinks her teeth into the character. She not only looks confident but her agile body and expressive eyes convey a lot. Shaam makes a fabulous comeback as the tough no-nonsense cop.
Cinematography by Ekambaram is effective in the train chase sequence and he has also majestically shot in Binny Mills the prison portions. Production designer Selvakumar deserves a big applause and his work in the film will definitely bring him huge accolades. Though Srikanth Deva's background score is pulsating, it's not necessary to fill every scene with heavy scores while newcomer Varshan's songs are strictly functional.
Overall, Purampokku Engira Podhuvudamai is another film where the concept is laudable but fails short in execution.
