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Balloon Review - Too flimsy to be serious and too serious to be entertaining!!!

PUBLISHED DATE : 30/Dec/2017

Balloon Review - Too flimsy to be serious and too serious to be entertaining!!!

Balloon Review - Too flimsy to be serious and too serious to be entertaining!!!


There is a scene in Balloon when Jai (who plays an aspiring filmmaker) lists out the must haves of the horror film that he intends to make.The familiar tropes of such a film -  a haunted house, a kid, a gullible heroine and sidekicks who end up as casualties are mentioned. The film itself employs all these tropes to a reasonably good effect for the most part. So despite being predictable Balloon works as long as it keeps doing what a horror comedy is supposed to do. The casting helps and the actors are quite good. Yogi Babu has a counter for every dialogue and hence atleast some of the jokes keep working like the one where he asks why is the priest changing channels with an imaginary remote (the priest is performing exorcism at this point).


Placing an emotional flashback in a horror comedy is something which I find absurd. Balloon does the same. The flashback here despite being crisp actually makes a little impact with Jai proving once again that he is quite good in underplay. In a role that most actors would try to milk sympathy by going overboard, he is quite neat. But the quite pointless villain with his motives that comes across poorly on screen mar the impact. Also as you know where this is all heading to you are already waiting for the movie to end as it has served its purpose.You are not really looking for logic in these films but the very first scene where a couple is killed makes no sense once the flashback is revealed.


The music, camera and the general look and feel of the film is a bit sophisticated compared to the average horror comedy in Tamil cinema. This surely isn't a lazy film made without intent. But it takes itself too seriously than it ought to. It even wants to fit in messages about caste issues and how the film industry is taken for a ride by fringe groups.


Bottom-line
Balloon remains adequately entertaining as long as it remains in the horror comedy space. But it starts losing air when it decides to get a bit serious.

Verdict: 2.5/5

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