Suseendhiran's pattern of alternating between commercial
and realistic movies continues in Paayum puli too, after his successful
outings in Pandiya naadu and Jeeva. His action movies hit the
"believable" chord. Neither they have gravity defying stunts nor his
heroes are larger than life. His protagonists are one among the masses,
be it Vennila kabadi kuzhu or Naan mahan alla or Aadhalaal kadhal
seiveer. Vishal - Suseendhiran combo is back in quick succession after
pandiya naadu in just a span of 2 years. Does the combo recreate the
magic?
The first half of the movie takes a lot of time building
the plot, often disturbed by songs and romance portions. It begins
testing your patience before it shifts gears just before intermission to
prepare you for the second half. If not suseendhiran had compromised on
the commercial elements, the first half could have been watchable.
Vishal, with his physique easily fits in as the cop. Vishal is the only
hero who makes you believe the action sequences except for a few gravity
defying airborne stunts like aambala. Kajal agarwal is just a passerby
in the movie, there are no strong scenes for her. "Love at first sight"
is a clichéd addition to the screenplay, even the scenes turning out to
be cliches. Soori's comical scenes evoke laughter at very few places,
and he must move out of vadivelu's shoes. The first half is bearable
only because of shades of susee style here and there.
Imaan's bgm is below average and his songs prove a disturbance when the
screenplay gets gripping - the songs are wrongly placed or placed for
the sake of it. At the first sight of kajal, vishal falls for her seeing
her fearing to cross the road. Imaan's "yaar intha muyalkutti" made me
wonder why suseendhiran moved out from yuvan shankar raja's studio.
Yuvan is definitely missed here. The compromise doesn't end there. The
action sequences in the first half are definitely not "suseendhiran"
style - must be "a miniature of director Hari in disguise".
Cinematographer velraj makes an impact right from the first scene. From
the looks of it, the title card was running through the clouds, but the
camera was actually zooming in. The first scene with the top angle shot
is a masterclass rendition from velraj. He does it in the climax too, a
great way to end the movie. Suseendhiran's dialogues show their true
color only after the pre-buildup for the interval block.
The second half comes out with suseendhiran stamp, the
scenes start moving at a faster pace. Again, Imaan's "silukku maramae"
slams the brakes. By the time, suseendhiran just has 40min to rewrite
the fate of the movie. Will he? Won't he? Does he? Yes, suseendhiran
takes this route - the suspense. He manages to save the movie with his
classy pre-climax and climax scenes. His "direct from the heart"
dialogues, witty placement of suspenseful scenes, stamp of realism and
intelligent usage of the built-up character sketch takes the movie past
the boundary line. This epic transformation is just about enough to save
an otherwise failure movie. Samudhirakani scores everytime and he
doesn't miss this time too. The choice of his characters have always
been perfect right from subramaniyapuram. The second half depicts the
current day politics, the miserable life of businessmen in debts,
"chameleon" people (sandharpavaadha makkal). With Vishal and
samudhrakani as brothers who stay on opposite sides of the law, is
susee's emotional family drama, which gets a thumbs up from the viewers
in the climax.
The intricacies in the climax sequence make it memorable.
There is a realistic action sequence between vishal and samudhrakani,
and during the fight, the two fall on both sides of the statue of a
freedom fighter - their grandfather. Vishal falls to the left and
samudhrakani to the right, vishal wears black and samudhrakani wears
white - an irony to the fact that vishal depicts the truth and
samudhrakani depicts the evil. ***Take a bow to the director***
Bottomline - A commercial masala movie saved by intriguing screenplay in the second half.
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