Pennu Case Movie Review: Nothing surprising about this con

Pennu Case Movie Review:

A con woman defrauds men across Kerala and Karnataka by posing as a bride under multiple identities, only to be caught mid-act during one such attempt. As the police dig deeper, murkier details emerge. Runaway bride scams are hardly unfamiliar in India, particularly in the North, and these real-life incidents clearly inspire Febin Sidharth’s debut feature Pennu Case. However, the film settles for an oddly timid comedy populated by absurd characters and an insipid narrative that leans far too heavily on a twist borrowed from a Hollywood classic, one that even a casual viewer can spot from miles away. Come on, it’s 2026.

Director: Febin Sidharth

Cast:  Nikhila Vimal, Hakkim Shah, Shivajith, Aju Varghese, Shivajith

Nikhila Vimal plays the woman in question, delivering a functional performance, but the casting itself feels questionable. The actor has repeatedly spoken about seeking strong, well-defined female roles, and seeing her reduced to such a generic character, especially in a supposedly female-centric film, feels off. With Nikhila in the role, there’s a constant sense that there must be more to the character than what’s on display. As a result, one never buys the film’s attempts to evoke sympathy for her “misfortune and suffering”, eventually failing to resonate with the intended high towards the end.

Despite the story having scope for a compelling character study of an unapologetically scheming woman and the multiple tricks up her sleeve, the makers refrain from going down that familiar path. Fair enough, but that restraint also demands alternative ways to engage the viewer, rather than waiting for a twist to compensate for all the lost moments.

We are also constantly 'told' how convincingly the woman duped several men, but are rarely 'shown' any of it. Ramesh Pisharody’s episode in the second half briefly offers a glimpse of her modus operandi, but even this is overstretched. Instead, the script would have benefited from spending more time on how victims are identified and the range of deceptions used to trap them. It's disappointing that despite having a total of five people credited for the screenplay and dialogues, the film struggles to deliver even a handful of memorable moments. The defence that a good part of the narrative is intentionally outdated and melodramatic does little to ease the tedium of waiting for a predictable 'big reveal'.

Hakim Shah, meanwhile, enjoys himself in relatively new territory. His CI Manoj is quirky yet empathetic, resolute even as he grapples with personal issues. Hakim approaches the role with earnestness—initially taken aback by the sheer number of allegations against the woman, and later determined to uncover her motives. The part demands a careful balance between humour and purpose, which he manages efficiently. The same holds for Shivajith, even when he briefly taps into shades of performance we haven’t seen from him before. Beyond them, only Ramesh Pisharody and Praveen Raja are afforded any real scope.

Pennu Case briefly flirts with narrative similarities to Sonam Kapoor’s Dolly Ki Doli and Suraj Venjaramoodu’s Nagendran’s Honeymoons, but familiarity is never the issue here. It’s the hollowness of the writing and the lacklustre execution that undo the film. If not for editor Shameer Muhammed trimming it to under two hours, the experience could well have turned into a real test of endurance.