MOVIE REVIEWS

PENPATTANAM review

The movie ‘Penn Pattanam’ directed by VM Vinu comes under the typical Malayalam movie genre. If someone re-phrases it, it can be described as a ‘family entertainer’. It contains everything an average family looks for. But the movie is par below average. The story is written by Renjith and screenplay by TA Razak. The film has no quality of those behind-screen experience hands. But the actors gave a remarkable performance, specially, Nedumudi Venu, Revathi, KPAC Lalitha, Swetha Menon, Augustin and Lal, to conceal other flaws of the movie.
Girija,[Revathi] Santha,[KPAC Lalitha] Suhara [Swetha Menon] and Vishnupriya are four different women hails from the middle-class. They together operate a small sewage cleaning unit in Kozhikode town. They share the all their problems together. One day they get 30 lakhs, from a waste bin, in an abandoned bag. They decide to share it first but they at last deposits the money in the Unnithan’s [Nedumudi Venu] finance company. New issues arise after that. Antony [Lal] is the Sub Inspector, investigates a Hawala-murder and he finds out a huge amount of money is missing. The investigation then circles around the four women. Suhara is looking for financial help for her paralysed husband’s [Sadiq] operation. Girija asks Unnithan to give her money back, but he denies paying. Finally they together find a solution and they solve and finish the problems.
VM Vinu’s casting is very good. Actually, the casting helps him to come out with relatively OK movie which is having a script full of flaw. Among the stars Nedumudi Venu scores maximum points in a role of a Villainous yet comical natured character. Among the four women, Revathi and Swetha Menon did very well while KPAC Lalitha did justice to her role. The Neelathamara fame Kailas did relatively small character [Mani – the love interest of Vishnupriya] that has no importance in the script or story. Augustin did fine performance in the role of the murdered man’s father. Even if his role is limited with 3 – 4 scenes, he created an impact.
The story is so simple; the only freshness it brings is that it has 4 women in the title roles. The scripting and direction both stand par below average. The story is perfect for enticing good comedy sequences, both the director and script writer failed to create comedy from a potential story. The only relief is Nedumudi Venu. The songs are highly avoidable. I don’t understand why the directors are inviting MG Sreekumar for making pale and shallow songs.
The movie has a totally new environment of Kozhikode. The director gave much care for giving the dialogues in the slang of Malabar for most of the characters. That creates freshness to the movie. Once again the performance of the lead cast is the biggest positive.
Overall a family entertainer, but will struggles in boxoffice.