Review - Pachai Kili Muthu Charam

Its a bold movie, yet again from Gautham Menon.

The story line is not very complicated. A middle-aged man, Venkatesh (Played by Sarath) falls into an extra-marital affair with Geetha (Jyothika) and before he realizes he is stuck to the cobweb of conmen, who then blackmail him for money. The rest of the movie is about how Sarath saves his marriage with his loveable wife (played by Andrea) and then hits back to take all the money he lost to the conmen!

Its very refreshing to see Sarath Kumar being introduced as just "Sarath Kumar" and not "Supreme Star". He plays a medical rep who is content with his sales job and passes every chance of promotion to stay in the city with his wife and kid. Andrea plays Sarath's wife. Inspite of her not-so-south looks, she scores well in emotions and carries the role of a disappointed lover/wife with remarkable depth. I wish she gets more such roles in tamil cinema.

The story begins slow with first half an hour devoted to introduce Venkatesh, Kalyani and their son, who has juvenile diabetics. Sarath wields emotions like we have never seen. He also looks polished and bright. There is ample room for the first time to display love, lust, affection, disappointment, sorrow, contentment and fear - all in one movie. Sarath has brought in each of these emotions to their full and nowhere is it exaggerated.

The family saves money for their ailing kid and even decides to forego the idea of having another kid, just to devote their live for this kid. Its in this meloncholy-meets-reality situation, Venkatesh gets to know Geetha. Her's is another story of unsuccessful marriage life. Venky and Geetha turn friends. Geetha then takes fast moves to bring Venky into a love-lust

quagmire.

Gautham's dilemma is whether to become a Quintin Tarrentino or to be his own.The edginess and riveting narration which he followed in his earlier movies were very Quintin-like. Each scene led to the other and we did not have a minute to take a breath.But PKMC needed a full first-half to develop two micro-stories, one of Venkatesh & Family and the one of Venkatesh & Geetha. Gautham could have done well by limiting Venkat-Geetha relationship phase to the minimum and used the rest of the time to build a racy fightback.

Its this indecisiveness till the first half, that brings the movie flat, for an average movie goer. Gautham tries to break traditions one too many at the same time. First its the story line which is about extra-marital affairs. Second its Sarath doing a subdued hero. Third its Jyothika with her earthern looks and unfamiliar voice dubbing and fourth being a very slow narration much against what you would expect his movies to have.

The movie takes off in a typical Gautham menon fashion, when Lawrence (Milind Soman) enters the story and the blackmail trail begins. You are waiting to see how Venkatesh handles the moral fight and when Venkatesh finds Geetha to be a part of Lawrence's con-gang, you would come to the edge of the seat.

But the feast that we saw in Anbuchelvan-Pandiya fightback is missing here. Firstly there is no fightback from Sarath for most parts and when he does its already the end of the movie. Lawrence & Geetha (we thought) die in a gun-fight with Venkatesh, who not very mysteriously has to rely on Sarath Kumar, the action hero to fight 10 men wielding iron rods. We too had to come to terms that after all its not Venkatesh, its Sarath Kumar.

With meloncholy-lust-deceit and chase taking three-fouth of the movie, Gautham would have felt, its too little a feast for his audience and as I thought I the movie was over, Jyothika springs back even after we thought she's shot dead, to lead another excruciatingly boring fight, where she indeed dies this time. It was neither racy nor any bit climactic. While Jo is all too willing to do a negative role in the end of her career's first innings, she could have taken care about her looks, dubbing and presentation. The life you associate with Jo, is missing.

My Verdict: You must watch it as early as you can. It may not be out there for long!