PUTHAGAM MOVIE REVIEW

Puthagam marks the directional debut of prominent TV personality Vijay Adhiraj. It is believed that he had the idea for this film almost 14 years ago and the idea has finally found its moment in the sun on the big screen with a Pongal release. Vijay Adhiraj tries to weave this tale with a concoction of new faces and some reliable old horses.

Puthagam is essentially about three young men who find themselves plagued with money related problems, both when their pockets are empty and when it’s overflowing. The source of their new found riches and the root cause for the entire situation make up the rest of the story of Puthagam.

The three youths in question are played by Sathya, who as the narrator himself points out looks a bit like his brother Arya, Sanjay Bharathi, son of veteran Santhana Bharathi (as an added quip, he also gets to call his father names in the film), and Vignesh who was last seen in Kaadhalil Sodhappuvadhu Eppadi. The first half of the movie revolves around setting up these three characters. The obligatory love angle is awarded to Sathya as he gets to romance Rakul Preet Singh, who plays a news channel reporter. As far as performances go, the young cast has performed with sincerity but it’s Rakul Preet Singh who shines the most with a sensible and sensitive acting display. Even her mouthing of words makes the lip sync look natural and the director, along with the actress, must be credited for working towards such important detailing.

The other cast members consist of a galaxy of popular TV faces and character artists like Uma Padmanabhan, Suresh, Thalaivasal Vijay, Santhana Bharathi, Fathima Babu and Mano Bala to name a few. Jagapathy Babu is an important character to the proceedings playing a casual gun-slinging mercenary and he has Rachna Maurya as his dynamite-like side kick. The seasoned supporting cast all live up to their expectations by easing through their roles.

Technically Puthagam looks good, credit to the cinematographer Laxman Kumar who has managed to show the colorful side of the fun loving youngsters and the more darker and sinister side of the scheming villains. James Vasanthan delivers some foot-tapping tunes that have been shot in picturesque locations abroad, and his able background score adds necessary drama for the important scenes.

Where Puthagam fails to be an exciting page-turner is in its distracted screenplay. Clocking at nearly 150 minutes, Puthagam contains several episodes that hamper the intensity and flow of the original plot, which is revealed only minutes before the interval. Knocking off the old-fashioned bromance and its related links could have made Puthagam racier. Another area where the film falls short of grabbing your attention is in its lengthy dialogue sequences which ideally could have been crisper. One feels that the director could have employed other means of narrative techniques to break the monotony of conversations.

Even though Vijay Adhiraj’s intentions were to serve up an interesting thriller for all kinds of audience, the result of what might have been an edge of the seat thriller turns into a long drama filled with the usual sentiments played by usual characters.