Muthal Pakkam Movie Review: Structurally weak and functionally flawed

Muthal Pakkam Movie Review:

Until the recent past, films were structured in such a way that after every scene filled with tension, there would be some light situations to keep audiences of all ages engaged. This 'comedy track', as everyone knew it, was to break audiences out of the intense nature of crime thrillers. But this part of Tamil cinema died down to make way for more coherent storytelling, which would blend the comedy into the story without breaking the flow. In Muthal Pakkam, the major flaw it holds is its choice of narrative structure. The crime thriller chooses a non-linear way to tell its story, and it becomes incoherent as a result.

Director: Anish Ashraf

Cast: Vetri, Thambi Ramiah, Shilpa Manjunath, Redin Kingsley, and Magesh Das

In a crime thriller that borders on drama, the key is to give space for the story to flow and its characters to help the flow. But Muthal Pakkam is not fundamentally strong on its base genre, to have it story flow from there. Redin Kingsley's antics and Thambi Ramiah's misplaced sincerity in comedy deviate from the film's main ambition of being a crime thriller. What adds to this misdirected venture are both Kingsley's and Ramiah's place in the scenes itself. Writer and director Anish chooses to use comedic circumstances to introduce characters, to bring together those characters, and as a narrative tool. The use of this much comedy means that the thrill is missed. The only significant role of the comedy, especially the character played by Kingsley, is simply to bring the two main characters, Prabhu (Vetri) and Ramaiya (Thambi Ramiah), together. When that goal is achieved, a flimsy reason is given for Kingsley's disappearance from the film.

Prabhu is the son of a crime novelist, who is called to Chennai by a magazine to cover the life and works of his father. Director Anish uses this flimsy reason of Prabhu's father being a "writer of crime" to justify Prabhu's infallible observational instincts and his wavering idealism. In Chennai, by some miraculous (read ridiculous) circumstances, he meets Inspector Ramiya, who is a bumbling but unassuming policeman. With him being such a senior official, you would wonder that his experience would have helped him rise through the ranks to get to this post. But since Ramiya needs to be unassuming, so that his comedic chops work, the writing fails to justify his credibility as a cop, something that is required later on in the film. Adding to the woes of the misfires of the writing for the protagonist, is the writing for the antagonist too. A two dimensional, underdeveloped villain is what the film settles for. He does not raise the stakes, which fails to increase the thrill quotient in the film.

Apart from the writing, something that does not work for the film is the technical department. AGR's music, which is reminiscent of some films of the early 2000s, does not complement the scenes, for which it was composed. Instead, it becomes a hindrance for the viewers to understand. Even with lyricists like Vivek or Karthik Netha, the songs are forgettable. Adding to the hindrance is the poor sound design of Muthal Pakkam. Noticably, the makers have played with the sound design, to add weight to the action sequences and for some dialogues in "high" moments. But what should have added gravitas ended up sounding unfinished. When Prabhu faces the antagonist, he delivers a monologue and ends it with a "punch line", where some effects are added. But instead of menacing it comes of as cartoonish.

Muthal Pakkam must have been made with a lot of heart from its makers and cast, but in a circle of circumstances, one flaw from one side, creates a domino effect that affects the rest of the film. Its crime elements are flimsy, its characters are forgettable, and the writing is all over the place. One is only able to wonder where in its two hour runtime is the roller coaster ride of watching a thriller.