Pa Paandi Review - A likable film

Bharath Vijayakumar

Plot: A sexagenarian sets out to live life on his terms.

Cast: 

This is a film that relies heavily on performance and the cast is extremely competent. Rajkiran is superb in the titular character. It is extremely tough to bring to life a child like innocence on screen. It can so easily end up looking artificial. But Rajkiran nails it. He is equally impressive in the emotional scenes. Watch out for the scene where he gets applauded by junior stuntmen. Prasanna, Dhanush and Revathy chip in with neat performances. Dhanush's caliber as an actor comes to the fore in the scene when he yearns to get one last glimpse of Madonna Sebastian. 

Along with Rajkiran it is Sean Roldan who is the soul of the film. There is this earthy feel about his music - simple and yet sort of connects with your emotions.The Dhanush scene that I mentioned earlier hits you all the more harder because of the background score.

Dhanush makes an impressive debut as a director. He treats emotions with a certain subtlety as well as dignity. His intentions to make a heartwarming feel good film is clearly obvious and he achieves this with aplomb. The characterisation of Prasanna is possibly the closest to reality that we get in the film. He is a good son who takes pains to ensure that his father leads a comfortable life but somehow like most of us, he too fails to understand the real needs of a loved one.

Whenever the film is low key and rides on emotions it is extremely enjoyable. The more mainstream moments aren't bad but this film could have been much more without those. But without those moments will it make more money? To Dhanush's credit he does take efforts to ensure that those moments blend into the narrative rather smoothly.

The stunts might be over the top but the protagonist being a former stunt-master helps us suspend some disbelief. Similarly the disclaimer before the flashback that this is just a routine love story kind of helps us in metering our expectations.

So you do realize that Dhanush knows exactly what he is doing.

Bottomline:

A likable film that strikes a chord with the help of fine performances from the cast.

Rating: 3.25/5