'Pulivesham' (Tamil)
Director: P Vasu
Cast: RK, Sada, Karthik, Ilavarasu, Mansurali Khan, Kanja Karuppu, MS Bhaskar, OAK Sunder, Mayilsamy
The gangster-cop storyline has become a lengthy drawn-out saga in the Tamil film industry. The new flick, Pulivesham, directed by P Vasu, is yet another film that joins this list. Though the director has tried to give it additional dimensions, it’s a cliched script that borrows from other films and his earlier ones, too.
The protagonist, Muniyan, an orphan, given refuge by the village landlord, is extremely devoted and protective of his master’s daughter Thamarai - their bonding carried over to their adulthood, inviting problems for the duo.
A natural performer, Ilavarsu as the landlord, infuses realism into his role.
Whatever the inadequacy of the script, coming out unscathed is RK’s performance.
He has honed his acting skills in various roles he’s got to play in Azhagar Malai and Avan Ivan. His voice modulation has also considerably improved. And as Muniyan, a rowdy, he gets to tap yet another dimension of his potential. And the actor does it quite impressively.
Sada plays a girl who suddenly enters Muniyan’s home in the city. Having nothing to do, she, like the audience, seems to have no inkling of what her relevance to the plot is. The twist comes a bit too late, when the audience have totally lost interest in her character.
The hero’s tormentors increase as the plot develops. There is ‘Pal’ Pandy (Sundar), a loan shark, Muniyan’s mentor-turned-foe and Govindan (Mansur), a thug, who runs a lucrative flesh racket, kidnapping and forcing girls into the trade. Mansur essays the role of Govindan with his usual lazy irreverence, the character more of a caricature.
There is Govindan’s ambitious handler (Bhaskar), another distracting element. In just a few scenes, he suddenly jumps to the forefront, a lot of footage wasted in his sudden comic-villain acts.
Watching from the sidelines is Murthy, a senior cop (Karthik). Determined to rid the city of criminals, and having a personal score to settle, Murthy manipulates Govindan’s innocence and vulnerability to his advantage. Karthik, trim and youthful, portrays his role adequately. But with the character making sporadic appearances in the narration, it fails to make much of an impact.
The ‘ghostly’ comedy track of Mayilsamy fits arbitrarily in the narration. The director has tried to capsule various issues into his script, making it more tedious, like his long take on the medical profession and on avaricious unscrupulous doctors.
As for the finale, it’s Murthy, who has the last laugh. Mission accomplished, and the cop remarks to his junior — “A rowdy is a rowdy. ..and there is nothing like a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ rowdy.”
So, the director has gone a whole way to depict his protagonist – rowdy, as a righteous ‘good’ rowdy! But whatever it is, there sure is something like a good film and a bad one.
And 'Pulivesham' doesn’t fall in the first list.