Film: Tamaar Padaar
Direction: Dileesh Nair
Cast: Prithviraj, Baburaj, Chemban Vinod and Srinda Ashab
There were times when filmmakers in Mollywood thought that it was easy to fool the audience by showing anything in the guise of comedy. These ‘sub-standard’ travesty of comedies were severely persecuted by the people and some of the filmmakers never even got a second chance.
Expectations were sky-high for ‘Tamaar Padaar’, the directorial debut of writer Dileesh Nair, who had penned crowd pullers like ‘Da Thadiya’, ‘Idukki Gold’ and ‘Salt and Pepper’. The title and the teaser itself had some eye-popping sequences, and were interesting enough. The line of stars like Prithviraj, Baburaj and Chemban Vinod added zeal to the overall expectations.
Tamaar Padaar, tagged as ‘The Great Indian Circus’, starts with a song about beard, composed by Bijibal. The song has some similarities with the opening song of the movie ‘Salt and Pepper’.
The story starts with the introduction of Jumber Thambi (Baburaj), who is a street performer. In the turn of events he meets Tubelight Mani (Chemban Vinod) who is also a street artist and is in love with Valsamma (Srinda Ashab). A friendship fosters between Thambi and Mani. ACP Pouran (Prithviraj) makes his dramatic entry just minutes before the interval. The second half unwinds with the narration of the life story of ACP Pouran, and soon he meets Mani and Thambi and the following incidents form the rest of the plot.
The movie adapts the narrative style of story telling, for which media critic Jayashankar, whose voice is famous with the programme Varanthyam, renders voice. But the trick fails to give any intellectual push to the film since the script by the director and Syam Pushkaran is lost in a land very far away from logic.
In effect the standard of the film also stoops to that of a televison sop. The complacent duo Baburaj and Chemban Vinod strives hard to make us laugh. But the audience can only shed tears as they still have a much evolved sense of humour and they value their hard-earned money and time more than anything else.
‘Tamaar Padaar’ is a kind of movie which tests the patience of the audience throughout. The trapese play by the actors fails to give any logical reasons to cheer.
Circus has become extinct due to the entry of more sophisticated art forms. Jumber Thambi attempts his trick on the street and very few people come to watch it. The script which looks like a torn circus tent is the major drawback of ‘Tamaar Padaar’, and makes it less enticing. By the time the camera zooms on the face of Prithviraj and the end title scrolls down, you feel like you have been mugged in broad daylight.