Pandi - Review

Once again Lawrence tested the waters with his new avatar as solo action hero. But the net result is not as much enthusiastic the actor expected and the often beaten maas masala with the backdrop of Village milieu fails to entertain the people.

The story and script is nothing new to Tamil viewers and it is the mixture of more than four or five Rajinikanth's super hit films (including a song Masi Masam aalana Ponnu...) and Veyyil, Em Magan, Jayam, Veerappu... etc.

Pandi (Lawrence) is a school dropout and later becomes local hero with a group of unemployed friends. His father is a disciplined school head master who always hates Pandi for his loafer nature and irresponsible activities. But his mother Sivagami (Saranya... What a lovely performance!) is always forgiving his mischievousness and pouring kind and lots of love towards her son. Due to circumstances he is forced to go to Dubai and doing some poor jobs to save his family. Finally he earns the love from his father.

But his father's enemy Rajkapoor accidentally kills Pandi's mother and finally when Pandi return from he take revenge to his mother's death. Lawrence single handedly manages more than a dozen bad guys in fights, dancing in all the five six songs, sacrifice everything and solves all the problems of his family members and earns brave name on screen... But from the viewers point of view, he must have improved himself in all the fields except dance. That too becomes boring at times seeing Lawrence with same old style movements in all the songs.

The director just used Namitha to appear in two songs like an item girl. Sneha steals the show throughout the film. Though a couple of her scenes are looking awkward, her dancing movements and bold acting skills make viewers to watch the film patiently. Seniors like Nasser, Saranya and Ilavarasu have done their part well. The climax is boring and irritating.

See, how the director handles the scene! The hero's mother is dead and final rites are taking place. At that time a courier comes home with a silk sari (Kanchipuram silk sari from Dubai!) for mother and the hero Pandi calls from Dubai, and asks everyone whether they got the courier. But nobody is willing to inform him the truth, just to keep the promise given to the dead mother!

Srikanth Deva's music irritates our ears. It is really intolerable to hear the classic cult song Maasi Maasm Aalana... of Illayaraja with a noisy and ameture orchestration of Srikanth Deva.

Whether it is Usilampatti or Dubai, the camera shows the locations in the same tone!

We couldn't expect such a crap movie from a director like Rasu Madhuravan who gave a decent family drama as his debut a few years back!

Verdict: Below average!
Cast: Lawrence, Sneha, Namitha, Nasser, Saranya, Ilavarasu, Ganja Karuppu.
Music: Srikanth Deva
Director: Raasu Madhuravan
Producer: Hithesh Jabak.