VINVELI PAYANA KURIPPUKAL MOVIE REVIEW
Critic's Rating: 2.0/5
Movie Synopsis: A gangster decides to go on a trip to space and orders those under his 'protection' to cough up the amount.
Movie Review: In terms of sheer novelty of premise, Vinveli Payana Kurippukal should rank very high among the Tamil films of the this year. Like Appuchi Gramam before it, the film shows that there is some interesting material that lies untapped in the the dichotomy between our living-in-the-past villages and the inherently futuristic science fiction.
This film begins with an off-screen conversation between a man and a woman that plays over the title credits. The subject of their discussion is Duraipandi (Advik Jalandhar), who the man considers to be just another gangster who made his living through katta panchayats, while the woman has gone ahead and written about him because the guy was someone who struck to his principles. They disagree over whether Duraipandi had actually travelled to space. Did he, or was he murdered by the very people to whom he offered his 'services', on account of his eccentric demand to cough up money for his space trip? That's what the film reveals to us in episodic fashion.
Apart from its premise, Vinveli Payana Kurippukal does offer a few surprises - the blatantly open illicit relationship between Duraipandi and his lover (who is now married, and takes out on her wimp of a husband by taking Duraipandi to her bedroom), the humour in the form of gags, both visual (the walls of the gangster’s house are adorned with Madhubani paintings, in addition to a life-size portrait of Neil Armstrong) and aural (a murder plot interrupted by someone's ringtone, which is Anbu Enbathe Deivamanadhu!), and even the episodic narration, which keeps the suspense over the protagonist's fate intact.
But the writing is let down by the filmmaking, which is, at best, TV serial-ish, and turns what should have been an exciting film into monotonous fare. If you feel benevolent, you could look over this and say that the rawness of the visuals give the film a documentary-ish feel, which serves its subject. But this is totally unintentional and the film is a clear case of good content becoming a casualty due to the amateurishness of form.
Movie Review: In terms of sheer novelty of premise, Vinveli Payana Kurippukal should rank very high among the Tamil films of the this year. Like Appuchi Gramam before it, the film shows that there is some interesting material that lies untapped in the the dichotomy between our living-in-the-past villages and the inherently futuristic science fiction.
This film begins with an off-screen conversation between a man and a woman that plays over the title credits. The subject of their discussion is Duraipandi (Advik Jalandhar), who the man considers to be just another gangster who made his living through katta panchayats, while the woman has gone ahead and written about him because the guy was someone who struck to his principles. They disagree over whether Duraipandi had actually travelled to space. Did he, or was he murdered by the very people to whom he offered his 'services', on account of his eccentric demand to cough up money for his space trip? That's what the film reveals to us in episodic fashion.
Apart from its premise, Vinveli Payana Kurippukal does offer a few surprises - the blatantly open illicit relationship between Duraipandi and his lover (who is now married, and takes out on her wimp of a husband by taking Duraipandi to her bedroom), the humour in the form of gags, both visual (the walls of the gangster’s house are adorned with Madhubani paintings, in addition to a life-size portrait of Neil Armstrong) and aural (a murder plot interrupted by someone's ringtone, which is Anbu Enbathe Deivamanadhu!), and even the episodic narration, which keeps the suspense over the protagonist's fate intact.
But the writing is let down by the filmmaking, which is, at best, TV serial-ish, and turns what should have been an exciting film into monotonous fare. If you feel benevolent, you could look over this and say that the rawness of the visuals give the film a documentary-ish feel, which serves its subject. But this is totally unintentional and the film is a clear case of good content becoming a casualty due to the amateurishness of form.
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