Film- Netru Indru
Director- Padmamagan
Cast- Prasanna, Vemal, Richard, Bharani, Arundhati, Nandagi, Harish.
After films like Pallavan and Ammuvagiya Naan to his credit, Padmamagan ventures into an action-thriller this time. The knot is different and the storytelling style is innovative. The narration travels on parallel tracks, one depicting the past events, and the other the present. But that’s all that is appreciative about his effort. Lacking a coherent screenplay and a focused narration, the director has gone overboard with the glamour quotient, at times slipping into a crass and sleazy mode.
The film opens with the killing of forest brigand Veera (Sampathram) by the special task force. There are shades of the Veerappan saga here. The cops are now on the trail of David, a cop (Prasanna) who had earlier shifted sides and joined the outlaw. On one track are the adventures of the team of four sent to the forest to track and apprehend David. On a parallel track are the events of the present with two main characters in it. There is Damini (Nandagi) stranded on the highway and in a hurry to reach the Kabini check post; and a car mechanic Sivaji (Vemal), perpetually drunk and with an overactive libido. She takes a lift from him. He makes crude passes at her, has prostitutes in his car, and makes indecent proposals to her about sleeping with him, thrice, when she loses her purse. But this does not deter the girl from travelling with him alone on a deserted highway. On the other track, the cops encounter Akila (Arundhati) in the forest. She says she lives in the forest, confesses to being a prostitute and is game to sleep with all the men. She offers herself to each of them at every camp they halt. The men lust after her and their mission is almost forgotten. With the girls in skimpy clothes, the camera caressingly lingers over them. The background music is loud and jarring and the two tracks are interlinked at the end and the urgency of Damini’s journey is explained.
The narration picks up a semblance of seriousness and peps up after the late entry of Prasanna who plays David. His is the only sincere performance in the film, but a wasted one in such a hopeless scenario. The rest sleepwalk through their roles neither with involvement nor seriousness. The whole scene of the landmine blast would have been a moment to remember, if the rest of the happenings weren’t so bad. Netru Indru is an unexpectedly disappointing fare from a director who had given such a sensitively crafted film like Ammuvagiya Naan.