Kollywood Today

Star-casts: Dhanush, Thamannah, Vivek, Suman, Atul Kulkarni, Shiyaji Shinde and others.
Banner: Vijaya Productions
Direction: Suraaj
Music: Manisharma
Cinematography: Venkatesh

Well, this is something for your information. When a funny message on Villu’s failure was messaged to Dhanush’s assistant, both laughed with cheerfulness. Vijay if you were waiting for your chance, carry on and get going with it…. ‘Padikadhavan’ – The most terrible and worst movie of this Pongal season and of course call it – Dhanush’s breaking point like Pudukotailirundhu Saravanan and Sullan. Director Sooraj has been such kind of filmmaker who easily copycats Hindi and Telugu films for his version. Nevertheless, comedy tracks were so excellent in ‘Thalainagaram’ and ‘Maruthamalai’ and this one isn’t an exception.

‘Awkward film’ – is what you would call this after watching… You would feel 150mins of horrible experience of late 90s Telugu film where minimum of 5 villains are present yelling with their annoying loud voices and a solo hero bumping them off. Naturally, Padikadhavan makes you feel of Satan is let loose out of hell or getting trapped with a half-drunken monkey inside a cage.

Radhakrishnan (Dhanush) happens to be the only uneducated person in his entire house. His father (Pratap Pothan) is so distressed and annoyed about him all the time. But his other family members are so kind to him. Over here with attempts of taking the story forward, our honorable filmmaker inserts an idea into our hero that getting married with a well educated girl would transcend his life. He meets an aeronautical student (Thamannah) and it’s love at first sight. The same crackbrained stuffs of dream sequences, hatred and finally love blossoming appears… But that’s not merely the tale for there happens to be a group of people separately eyeing for Radhakrishnan and his ladylove. Don’t get too excited… Rest of the story with its sluggish screenplay has lots of restlessness on you.

Dhanush can better quit acting for few days, fetch a good script like ‘Adhu Oru Kana Kaalam’ or ‘Yaaradi Nee Mohini’ and then make his comeback. Looking leaner isn’t a big deal, but getting on with unbelievable stunts that he isn’t capable off is something ludicrous. Well, in one particular scene we have our hero’s friends uttering the same words, but that doesn’t get follow anywhere? It’s so evident that henchmen are carrying artificially made sickles and knives, which we very often spot in plays of school day functions. Our dear Thamannah, don’t ever accept such kind of offers for that will dump you out of town. She is perfect on all vistas except choosing the script. Vivek offers certain humor tracks but most of them do remind us about Vadivelu’s style (Fine! As you all know it’s Vadivelu who was replaced by Vivek). But it would have been nice if Vadivelu had played that role as Vivek doesn’t fit the role of funny don. Suman, Shayaji Shinde, Atul Kulkarni have been wasted on their roles and don’t know the exact reason what the filmmaker was doing here?

Most of the scenes have been taken from Pawan Kalyan’s Telugu movie ‘ABCDEFG – A Boy Can Do Everything For Girl’ especially the tiff between Dhanush and Thamannah. It is better for Suraaj to stop watching DVDs and think something different.

Musical score by Manisharma is a mediocre and none of the songs are worthy hearing. Ditto to his background scoring. Cinematography and Editing are so amateurish.

On the whole, ‘Padikadhavan’ has no chances of making it big in box office… Even Dhanush’s diehard fan would make of his ridiculous acts on the screen…

Bottom - Line: illiterate fails to the worst

Verdict: Damp squib

Categories: Reviews
Tags: atul kulkarni, dhanush, manisharma, padikathavan, padikathavan review, sivaji shinde, suman, sun pictures, suraaj, tammana, venkatesh, vijaya productions, vivek