Mazhai Pidikkatha Manithan Review - Yawn Fest

Ashwin Ram

Mazhai Pidikkatha Manithan is an action drama starring Vijay Antony, Megha Akash and Sarathkumar in the lead roles. The film is directed by Vijay Milton.

Premise:

Vijay Antony was a commander of sting operations, he is dead according to the Government. After a series of situations, he reveals his identity to the public. How he faces his enemies and his own covert team is the remaining story.

Writing/ Direction:

Opens with an overly ambitious voice-over with poor animation on how the story is a continuation to Vijay Antony starrer ‘Salim’, the narrative takeaway is that the man hates rain now, it does not help the story in any manner as there is barely any payoff. It’s such a lazy flick with not even a single good point to mention, the dull pieces in the paper are brought on-screen in the most artificial way possible. Lip-sync issues exist throughout, not just that but the voices feel as if we are watching a dubbing film. Amateurish directorial skills are showcased in every scene, random statements are displayed in written form in between the scenes, lame punch dialogues, changing the villain’s ideology in the climax just by showing him a video and what not. Zero coherence in the screenplay, the pacing is dead slow too. Audiences are completely taken for granted, Megha Akash switches her love-interest the next second after the hero explains why he can’t stay with her further and the worst of the lot is when commanding officer Sathyaraj’s name is revealed as Captain Prabhakaran and the card appears saying this film is a tribute to the late actor Vijayakanth, we naturally think the opposite. The base of the film itself is a big failure, two different threats faced by two different people lead Vijay Antony to fight with the villain, both the reasons are childish and the hero’s bonding is vaguely established with the people he tries to save, so nothing works out.

Performances:

Vijay Antony’s character is weakly portrayed, the Baasha template is executed as a joke. Also, the man is not just subtle here, he looked so uninterested on-screen. There is a purpose for the presence of Sarathkumar and Sathyaraj, but felt like they were having their own sweet time on a different planet, their conversations never went well with the main track. Megha Akash’s body language is so funny in some serious situations, that was the quality of performance she delivered. Silly roles and no scope for acting for Murali Sharma and the Jaali Dhananjay, their villainous mannerisms were never enjoyable. The most annoying personality and performance of the film is Pruthvi Ambaar who plays the hero’s friend.

Technicalities:

Poor production quality, the entire story is set in the exotic Andaman Islands, but all we get is some low grade green-mat visuals and interior shots. Even after excluding the careless VFX work, the cinematography is very dull due to lackluster shot-divisions and some clueless partially-blurred frames. Unimpressive songs that fail to set the mood right, non-stop background score without any breather results to be an overwhelming musical experience. The least the editor could have done is trimming the highly intolerable lags, the film moves slower than a person could dream of and is filled with old-school cut patterns of the spoon feeding style.

Bottomline

A notorious commercial flick filled with outdated sequences presented in an unbearable fashion. It is boring in most parts and the rest is irritating, unfortunately zero redeeming qualities.

Rating - 1.5/ 5