Irudhi Pakkam – Crisp runtime and twists help the film to stay afloat!
Bharath Vijayakumar
Irudhi Pakkam is a whodunit involving the murder of a young woman. The premise is interesting as the victim happens to be a novelist whose stories are based on her real-life experiences.
The performances really hamper Irudhi Suttru. Amrutha Srinivasan, Rajesh Balachandran and Vignesh Shanmugam are pretty decent but the rest of the cast leave a lot to be desired. Calling some of these performances as amateur could be an understatement. With a lot of refinement in this department alone, this film could have been so much more. This is where the crisp runtime really helps. A longer film and it would have been really difficult to sit through.
The film safely says that the protagonist could be good or bad and refrains from making a judgement. In fact, the caption at the start of the film reads something on these lines, ‘Few people are good, few are bad, few have grey shades and then there is a section that is none of the above’. The protagonist belongs to this ‘none of the above’ group and is certainly an interesting character on paper. She is a loner who refuses to go by the norms of the society and sees love and sex as two different entities. While the film does well by not judging her, it somehow sort of ends up judging the other characters. There could be a counter argument that the film itself doesn’t judge these characters and it is actually the POV of the protagonist but this doesn’t come through clearly. For instance, one of the characters (Mithun) who comes across or is projected as evil is actually the most honest person in the film. He might have few other issues but he is transparent and actually doesn’t cheat anyone as opposed to the protagonist who clearly cheats but ends up feeling cheated. Again, as I said earlier, the film does make its point clear about the protagonist not being perfect but all of this needed better execution.
The twists, some of which you see coming, work to an extent and the film that runs at just about 90 minutes is packed with these. This is what actually keeps you invested despite the issues. The characters are interesting on paper and in a better made film with good performances, you might have wanted to see more about the lives of these characters.
Bottomline:
If you are in the mood for an easy watch thriller and won’t mind few amateurish performances, then Irudhi Pakkam would fit the bill. The twists that keep coming and the crisp run time save the day!
Rating: 2.5/5