Pazhaya Vannarapettai Review
Director : Mohan
Cast : Pragin, Nishanth, Richard, Karunas
Debut director Mohan's Pazhaya Vannarapettai is a whodunit murder mystery. Few days before the by-election, a double murder attempt happens in Old Washermanpet and cops arrest multiple suspects including a group of engineering students, who were present in the spot.
Few hours before his death, the victim points out one of the five engineering students as the murderer and hence the investigation officer arrest him out of suspicion while other suspects are set free.
Despite the local inspector's strong conviction, Assistant Commissioner Moorthy (Richard) and accused's friend Karthik (Pragin) along with a local thug Dheena(Nishanth) start hunting for the real murderer.
Pazhaya Vannarapettai is technically sound with stellar cinematography and solid background score but the amateur performances of actors make it an average mystery thriller. Though Pragin is not convincing as a college student, his performance is adequate. Richard as the brainy and brawny cop is unintentionally hilarious, especially the fight on the flyover with lightning effect in the backdrop is an unwanted heroism in a well moving screenplay.
But director Mohan is quite promising in few scenes including the action block, where both Pragin and Nishanth encounter four rogues with blasting score and festival lighting setup. It's quite contrary to watch a well etched action sequence and a poorly choreographed one back to back, which leads to a confusion whether the director had any external pressure from the particular hero or producer?
The first half of Pazhaya Vannarapettai moves at a snail pace as the director takes his own time to establish characters, which may test the patience of audiences but post intermission, things get interesting.
Director Mohan has explored many underworld locations, which gives a fresh feel to the film but one can witness too many first-film flaws including half baked characters and several unwanted dialogues.
To conclude, Pazhaya Vannarapettai has its moments but the amateurish performances spoil the show.
