Film: Jackson Durai
Director: Dharanidharan
Cast: Sathyaraj, Sibiraj, Bindu Madhavi,Karunakaran, Rajendran, Neha Menon
Centered around a young police officer sent to a remote village to investigate the villagers’ story of a haunted mansion, Jackson Durai is yet another horror-comedy that falls flat with a hastily-written screenplay. The film has actors like Rajendran, Yogi Babu and Karunakaranapart from Sathyaraj. These actors have done what was required of them, but seem wasted in roles that are neither fleshed out properly, nor interesting in their take.
The film begins promisingly enough. And for the first half, strides purposefully towards what seemed like an intriguing supernatural scenario. But the screenplay takes a downward swing in the second half never to recover. The story opens with Sathya, a lazy cop (Sibi), picked by the crime branch to investigate the eerie happenings in a village. Sathya falls for the village bigwig’s daughter (Madhavi), but has a rival suitor in her cousin Veera (Karunakaran). Her father’s condition that he would give his daughter’s hand in marriage to the one who stays in the haunted bungalow for a week and comes out alive, spurs both suitors to make a go for it.
The second half, mainly confined to an underground cell, has shades of The haunting in Connecticut 2 (2013). The backstory of the ghosts, the pre-independence movement and the freedom struggle is dull and insipid. Its straight narration is neither exciting nor interesting.
What is appreciable here is the work of the technical crew. The visual of the dimly lit interiors that create an eerie ambiance, the set design, and the geeky make-up, all help sustain the feel and mood. It’s the content that fails to match up to it.
It’s a scenario that becomes tiresome soon enough. Jackson Durai may have seemed interesting on paper. But translated on to the screen, neither its horror element, nor its comic quotient works.