Nibunan Movie Review - Highly ambitious, splutters towards the end

Hari

Over the years Arjun has certainly carved a name for himself as Action king, known for his daredevil stunts and raw street brawls, Arjun has experimented himself in his 150^th film with a suspense thriller. Along with Prasanna and Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, the trio appear to be dressed up a tad too overly as the criminal investigation gang who set out in search of a mystery murderer. Arun sets the stage for a serial killer story that focuses on two aspects; the killer and the cop in charge of the investigation, how it pans out in a nutshell is Nibunan.

Arjun, Prasanna and Varalaxmi are assigned to a rather strange case, a no nonsense serial killer who goes on a murdering spree leaves behind a signature with a clue to his next target. Arjun usually sticks to chasing the goons by himself, beating them with his bare hands to pulp. Nibunan still manages to retain that machoism from him, instead of working up on the action part, Nibunan concentrates on intelligence and mind games. The initial suspense gradually builds on you, the excitement is clearly established and you start getting a feel of a really good crime novel unfolding in front of you. It’s not that boned suspense thriller with an eerie BGM, Arun keeps it regional with family sentiments, few comical gimmicks and all that.

A serial killer story is never void of clues, those rhythmic murders that has an art of killing design, sinister phone calls, a rugged hero suffering from his work habits; Nibunan ticks all these and genuinely tries to justify them too. With every murder, the investigation spices up with more clues and forms a trajectory part in zeroing in on the villain’s motive and whereabouts. As and again the screenplay shuttles to Arjun’s family – Vaibav as his brother, Sruthi Hariharan as his wife and baby Swaksha as his daughter. Sruthi is fresh, her energetic expressions could have been used more, but a film as Nibunan has little scope for her character. With the first half establishing ground work for a reasonable thriller, the film progresses rapidly in the investigative angle until it dawns to the gang on who the next victim could be. At such a point the film should ideally gather steam, instead a mediocre flashback followed by a series of predictable turnout of events make the film lose its ground.

Arun keeps it simple when it comes to characterization, to establish the roles of each of the lead cast he gives them life by their aligning their interests with their profession. Varalaxmi and Prasanna are enjoyable, smart and add a commercial angle with their professional jokes still retaining their seriousness with the case. With each murder the trio ponder over the intent of the killer, but as we find out the reason and Arjun’s connection in the case it somehow does not sound very convincing shooting a hole in the logic. After a slow second half, in the means to frame a chilling climax the whole ordeal becomes rather too flimsy letting down the whole effort put through the start.

Nibunan despite its flaws still tries its best to be a decent crime thriller, the screenplay through the first one and half hour keeps us engaged through thrills along with the rich chemistry between Arjun-Shruti, although its Shruti who steals the show. Arjun certainly does not look like a man in his 150^th film, he carries the character of a responsible cop with a great sense of love towards his closed ones with perfection, the excessively classy costumes looks a little amiss still no harm done. Navin’s BGM builds the tension required for a thriller aptly, the songs though are hardly noticeable.

Bottomline:

Nibunan starts off ambitiously for a murder mystery, gives away to predictability and average execution.

Rating: 2.5/5