'Paayum Puli' review: The film takes too much time to get its rhythm right

Cast: Vishal, Kajal Aggarwal, Soori, Samuthirakani, Murali Sharma, Jayaprakash.

Director: Suseenthiran.

Rational complaints against the film have to be raised for treating it with insufficient heart. Suseenthiran and Vishal have teamed up again after ‘Pandiya Naadu’ for this partly-working version of ‘Paayum Puli’. The problem with this film is it takes almost half the time in getting its rhythm right. But after all the beating around the bush and the needless romantic songs which serve no purpose, the film stops wobbling.

If a thriller takes its own sweet time in narrating its fundamental theme, you’ve lost half the zeal already. If the same story was handled by Mysskin, first of all, the title of this ‘dishum-dishum’ tale would have been different, and he really wouldn’t have let Kajal Aggarwal traipse into this motion picture. Here, she’s an unwelcome lead. If a heroine is required to show up and make the hero fall in love with her, at the first sight, that too, then her job is done. Her introduction scene can actually be used for footwear commercials. Or an LIC commercial, if you will. The only bright spot about her presence is where Vishal asks her to turn around and count numbers, so that he, in the meantime, could deal with a rowdy who is troubling her to marry him. Kajal turns with a smile thinking that Vishal would beat the rowdy and his friends up; what happens there is another story and you have a genuine reason to smile for the first time. Oh, Soori’s jokes are mostly stale. We’ll have to depend on these kinds of situations for comic relief.

A twist in the middle is probably the wakeup call, I guess. That’s when the filmmaker realizes that he has a cop and a villain in his film and that there has to be a Tom and Jerry game between the two. Prakash Raj would have easily given his nod for the role played by Samuthirakani. It’s such a layered role. Samuthirakani’s performance is shakily let down by his on-screen father, though. Bharathiraja was a terrific father in ‘Pandiya Naadu’. You need that dad here – someone who is proud of his sons and who is also vulnerable when things go haywire.

Vishal doesn’t need a dialogue to prove his capability as a police officer unlike Jayam Ravi who needs an extra punch for the believability factor to kick in. If Vishal says he’s a police officer, you buy it. He has the panache, however ridiculous it sounds. For that matter, Suseenthiran, too is a filmmaker you can’t easily walk away from. Yet when he chooses to throw in an item song in a film that doesn’t warrant it, it’s hard to digest.

‘Paayum Puli’ finally ends up as a film you’re angry at because it could have gone up several scales but is okay with taking a seat somewhere in the middle.

Rating: 3/5