U Turn Review - Another laudable effort from Pawan

PUBLISHED DATE : 27/May/2016

U Turn Review -  Another laudable effort from Pawan

U Turn (Kannada) - Another laudable effort from Pawan!!!

Bharath Vijayakumar


Pawan Kumar certainly has a part in putting Kannada cinema in the Indian map if not the World map. There are surely quite a few people around the globe (including me) whose only interaction with Kannada cinema so far has been ‘Lucia’ from Pawan in 2013. The young filmmaker’s latest offering U turn thankfully promises to keep this interaction up and alive.

 

Plot


An intern at a newspaper office inadvertently gets into a maze of dire straits as a result of her interest involving a ‘U turn’ in a busy flyover.

 

Shraddha Srinath is the pivot of the film and she is fabulous. She plays Rachana with a mix of quiet confidence and vulnerability. More often these type of roles get displayed as overtly strong women and turn cinematic. But in U Turn while the protagonist is a brave and independent woman, she does not go around wearing this like a badge that conceals all her other traits. We get a side of her that yearns for attention from a male colleague. But none of this is redundant and it all has a part to play in the final scheme of things. Roger Narayan is very good as the sub inspector who goes beyond his call of duty in helping Rachana. There is not an extra second spent on any scene involving these two to even try and suggest a mutual attraction. Of course Roger’s superior might suspect this, as can be made out by his body language but the film steers clear of this rather refreshingly. 

 

Much like Lucia there is a very much earthen feel to the film with the frames looking life like. Of course it does give a slightly low key feel – the type you get while watching a short film. But this is also what separates these films of Pawan Kumar from the rest. You feel like you are very much part of the action and not just watching things unfold from the other side of the screen. 

 

Mild Spoilers:


U Turn works as an effective thriller for the most part and the guessing is on throughout. The climax is not really far fetched but does seem a little bit contrived. Also there is always this tendency on our part to hold a psychological thriller above a supernatural thriller as logic can be given a little leeway in the latter. But to his credit Pawan has clearly defined how things work in U turn. It is just that a 'Lucia' pill sounds more cool than our neighbourhood ghost!!! Why does Roger's superior try to keep him away from investigating further? While this does help in creating suspicion it never really is justified. While his intent to close the case soon is definitely the reason would not he be more prudent given the fact that there is a high possibility of impending deaths.

 

Bottomline:


Just like his previous film Pawan has taken a very interesting core and built an engrossing thriller around it.

 

Rating: 3.25/5

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