Idiot Review - Painful To Sit Through

Ashwin Ram

Idiot is a horror-comedy genre flick directed by the Dhillukku Dhuddu fame Rambhala. The film stars Shiva, Nikki Galrani, Redin Kingsley, Oorvasi, Anandaraj and a lot of notable artists in the lead roles.

Premise:

Shiva is pushed out of his house after he brings down his family's reputation by going against his father's orders. He fights and gets his share of the property on his way out, which is a Booth Bungalow. And, the ghost game begins…

Writing/ Direction:

Stuffed with a template ghost movie flashback. Also, the route it takes to reach its destination is filled with misfires. None of the jokes fall into place and taps the comedy quotient on the right chord. A storyline is as thin as a wafer, but stretched overly long that even a 2-hour crisp film feels like a day long. Takes too much time to reach the place of the core plot, wastes a lot on explaining Shiva's situation in his home village. Even after moving from the place, the progress is stuck in a hospital by randomly saying the hero is suffering from memory loss after a minor accident. Audience completely taken for granted, not even a single place has basic logic. Director Rambhala offered something decently entertaining with Santhanam in the Dhillukku Dhuddu franchise, but here he has absolutely lost track. Hardly the dialogues are enjoyable. Scene to scene continuity is missing, subplots are placed very conveniently and hence we couldn't involve ourselves with the characters and watch the proceedings. Artists are wasted with no scope to score, the situations are dull and old-school. Suddenly a lady villain appears out of nowhere and narrates a monotonous flashback just to justify her revenge angle. Climax goes overboard as the lead characters get superpowers. On the whole, the first half is sluggish to the core, the second hour is very basic and usual of how the characters escape from the ghosts by inviting an expert saint to send the spirit off the picture.

Performances:

It's like Shiva is left out in an open ground all alone with no external support, witty humour has always been his biggest strength, but here he finds it tough to offer laughter as his comedy punches are poorly written. Manages to put a smile on our faces only in a couple of places with his counters in a 2-hour long movie. Nikki Galrani is a psychiatrist, yet he behaves like a patient to fit the crappy 'commercial heroine' tag. Redin Kingsley has very less scope, had hopes on him but his jokes aren't impressive like his previous outings. Ananda Raj, Oorvasi, Ravi Maria, etc appear in an intended to by funny roles… but they don't have a single good moment in the entire film. Amidst the whole bunch, not even one artist has a reputed role to play.

Technicalities:

There are a couple of boring song situations and the music is bad too. Familiar sound effects which feels like we've already heard in other comedy genre films, background score work is very minimal. Cameraman is not at fault, but provides nothing special at the same time. Lethargic editing all over, none of the scenes are complete, scene order is carelessly placed and so messed up in both halves. Decent work by the art department team as they've set up the props required for a horror film.

Bottomline:

A tried and tested horror-genre flick that has no redeeming qualities. Despite having some likable artists on board, the poor situations don't let them deliver anything funny.

IDIOT - Painful To Sit Through!

Rating - 1.5/ 5.