Patchaikili Muthucharam – A review
February 23, 2007
Every time Gautham Menon makes a movie, he makes me cringe. He has this amazing ability to come up with an interesting plot and then find an ingenious way to screw it up.
Patchaikili Muthucharam starts badly, gathers pace, reaches a high and then fizzles out. Gautham is obviously in a haste to bring in his favorite actress. So, a receptionalist has to say that Sarath Kumar is flirty, for us to know that he is. Sarath Kumar has to tell us he is crazy about his wife, for us to know that he is. Indian cinema has always relied more on dialogues than emoting and scenes to get the message across. And then Sarath Kumar looks completely lost here. So this entire first act looks contrived, but Gautham can be forgiven for the next one hour makes you sit up.
This is Gautham’s ode to Jyothika. This is as much her movie as Sarath Kumar’s and Gautham has tried his best to give her big farewell. She acts well in parts, but doesn’t really manage to get more than a couple of expressions. But the plot unfolds well, if you can forgive the acting. Sarath Kumar comes up with a really subdued performance and he delivers and this hour makes up for the most interesting part of the movie. The reasons and the set up for Sarath Kumar and Jyothika to cheat on their respective spouses is much better than movies like KANK. The places, the dialogues (most of what I could hear from the crappy print) and the situations are very believable.
And then the twist. I think Gautham realized that almost everybody would have guessed it by now and so does not make a big deal about. But I think that is also the reason why the movie dragged on for another half hour.
The funny thing is that this movie will again be touted as really sound movie and will get raving reviews. I can take it when a really crappy movie becomes a huge hit, but I find it really difficult to digest the fact that what could have been a great movie, fails to deliver and still gets touted as a great movie. For some reason that bugs the hell out of me.
April 20, 2007 at 4:33 pm
I really liked his work in Minalle and kaka kaka. I agree that the movie stuck its neck out but ended badly.The movie started well contrary to what the person thinks and gained pace , but Gowtham seems to run into infinite loop before ending the movie abruptly.I agree that none of these thugs had lodged a complain about the death of larence, but what with Ramachandran, who gets killed in the resort. When sharth kumar friend says that there was no news of any death in the resort is not convincing. But however ovrall the director needs to be commended for bringing in a bold concept and picturizing it really well. The movie is very realistic and any common man can easily correlate himself to sharath.
April 20, 2007 at 6:10 pm
I really liked his work in Minalle and kaka kaka. I agree that the movie stuck its neck out but ended badly.The movie started well contrary to what the person thinks and gained pace , but Gowtham seems to run into infinite loop before ending the movie abruptly.I agree that none of these thugs had lodged a complain about the death of larence, but what with Ramachandran, who gets killed in the resort. When sharth kumar friend says that there was no news of any death in the resort is not convincing. But however ovrall the director needs to be commended for bringing in a bold concept and picturizing it really well. The movie is very realistic and any common man can easily correlate himself to sharath.