After the average entertainer Naan Than Bala comes Palakkattu Madhavan, Vivekh’s second ‘heroic’ venture. While the earlier one turned out to be a serious moody thriller, this one gives more space to comedy, adding family sentiments in the latter part. The script and narration are more like that of a stage play, and the genuine fun moments few and far between.
Vivekh plays Madhavan, a lazy irresponsible family man. The early scenes include him shifting multiple jobs. These moments could have been worked out better. Madhavan takes up the job of a cab driver in a travel agency. His very first assignment — a Nadodigal-style kidnap with Shambo Shivashambo running in the background — puts him off soon enough. His next is that of a food taster at a minister’s house (Yogi Devaraj). A couple of more such incidents are included in the film, but all of them only just mildly amusing.
Madhavan later gets a job offer that pays him good money. The job requires him to adopt a wealthy elderly woman Pattu Maami (Sheela), who is abandoned by her sons. He brings her home, takes care of her, and gets paid for it monthly. Pattu Maami, with her eccentric behaviour and a zest for life, drives him round the bend with her strange demands.
And with his wife Lakshmi (a listless Sonia) not getting along with the older woman, Madhavan has a tough time balancing the act. A message about the need to take care of the elderly is also conveyed here. Sheela, who returns to Tamil screen with the movie after a long sabbatical, revels in her role. Energetic and spirited in her performance, she manages to keep the movie lively to an extent.
Though Vivekh tries hard to make the film entertaining, many of the jokes, being stale and the moments not generating much humour, there is very little he could do to salvage the situation. One misses his usual wacky one-liners too. The director seems to have a tough time placing the songs, which spring up at inopportune moments. Rajendran’s entry peps up the narration to an extent, and his altercation with Sheela brings in a few laughs.
Film: Palakkattu Madhavan
Director: M Chandramohan
Cast: Vivekh, Sonia Agarwal, Sheela, Rajendran, Manobala, Arthi
The scenes leading to the climax take the sentimental mode, the narration petering off to a predictable ending.
The film goes with the tagline Ivan Thamizhan, though the hero often keeps calling himself a Palakkattu guy. The viewing time could have been shortened than 140 minutes. The film’s plot shares uncanny similarity with that of the old Malayalam movie Manassinakkare, which incidentally was also Sheela’s come-back film on Malayalam screen. An average entertainer, Palakkattu Madhavan was a plot with potential. The screenplay could have been worked out in a more interesting and appealing way.
