'Payanam' (Tamil, Action)
Director: Radhamohan
Cast: Prakashraj, Nagarjun, Rishi, Sana Khan, Sams, Babloo, Kumaravel, Charan.
Rarely has a flight-hijack drama been presented on the Indian screen. There are rare ones like the recent Malayalam release Khandahar inspired by a real-life incident. So, 'Payanam' a bilingual (Tamil, Telugu) centered on a hijack-plot, comes as a welcome change.
For the director-producer team of Radhamohan and Prakashraj, it’s an outing quite different from their earlier soft romantic tales, and human relationships as in 'Mozhi' and 'Abhiyum Naanum'.
The drama begins when a group of terrorists hijack a flight, and demand the release from jail of terrorist mastermind Yusuf Khan. The Home secretary (Prakashraj neatly fitting in), and Major Ravi heading a commando force (a trim debonair Nagarjun, in his second Tamil outing after 'Rakshakan'), are brought in to dissolve the crises.
The duo is pressurised into releasing Yusuf, but an unfortunate incident thwarts that move. As they hatch up an alternate plan to tackle the crises, tension mounts on the flight. Within the limits of the confined space, KV Guhan’s camera captures the action impressively. Mercifully, there is no romantic angle or song-dance numbers here. The director has been able to sustain a fair amount of interest and suspense.
But more than the hijack-crises, it’s the side-scenes and characters where the director takes a light-hearted dig at celebrity-foibles, that generate more interest like the whole episode of the bragging, flop film- director (a superb Brahmanandam), roped in by the major to help out in their rescue plan. And the timid junior actor (Charan with split second timing), brought in to replicate a reel-life role in real life.
But the scene stealer undoubtedly is Sams, brilliant in his portrayal as the co-passenger of ‘superstar’ Chandrakanth. Hilarious are the scenes where he having taken the star’s celluloid heroics and punch lines to heart, goads the terrified actor (Babloo splendidly reacting) into having a go at the terrorists.
A hijack-drama normally is expected to generate a lot of tension, and fear for the lives of the hostages. But here it’s the comedy quotient that peaks up. So much so, that it could almost have been a spoof on Hollywood’s hijack-flicks (like 'Executive Decision').
But kudos to the producer-director team for even attempting such a mammoth task in terms of concept and execution.
'Payanam' is hijack-drama in a Kodambakkam-style!