Lubber Pandhu Review -  A Wholesome Entertainer Powered With Solid Drama!

Ashwin Ram

Lubber Pandhu is a sports drama directed by debutant Tamizharasan Pachamuthu. The film stars Harish Kalyan and Attakathi Dinesh in the lead roles. The music is scored by Sean Roldan.

Premise:

Harish Kalyan and Attakathi Dinesh are good cricket players who take part in the local tournaments. An ego clash ignites between the two regarding who is the better player, the drama develops to form the remaining story.

Writing/ Direction:

The timeline transition is beautifully shown by mentioning the cost of a rubber ball, which instantly gives good vibes about the filmmaker’s skill. Usually these cricket based subjects will be restricted as a “Boys Film”, but this one is a specimen by having enough elements to attract all sorts of audiences. More than the ego clash, the family drama layer is strongly coated as the core connection lies there. The humane emotions work very well, the situations and visual montages help, and are addressed primarily with the trust two characters have in their relationship. The caste and gender politics topic in cricket is mildly touched, yet they do make an impact as these aspects occupy the center stage at a very crucial part of the narrative. The comedies are very lively, hilarious moments in the form of funny arguments happening outside the boundary-line and running commentary during the match situations. Both the leads have their share of spacing in the climax, a whistle-worthy moment for Attakathi Dinesh and a sensible novel decision made by Harish Kalyan makes him an inspiring person. Flip side, there are plenty of lip sync issues as it looks like many dialogues have been changed during the dubbing process. The breaking point for the face-off is terrifically set, characters mellowing it down in the latter is acceptable as the family backdrop comes into the picture, but however the impact is low-key as those sequences lack freshness. Last but not the least, the cricket matches could have been presented better, with more believably looking gameplay.

Performances:

Equal importance given to both the male leads, cake-walk for Harish Kalyan and boy has given the best for his enthusiastic character. Attakathi Dinesh maturely makes himself suitable as Harish Kalyan’s father-in-law through his efficient body language and a convincing look set. Sanjana Krishnamoorthy looks comfortable in the happy sequences, but not-so-satisfying in the heavy emotional places. On the other hand, Swaswika Vijay hits it out of the park with her commendable performance. Perfect job by Bala Saravanan, superbly delivered the humor dialogues with that sarcastic attitude. 

Technicalities:

Nice songs with lovely lyrics to enlighten the montages. Pleasing background score as well, Sean Roldan has understood the mood of the cricket matches correctly and decided to play it soft with music. No complaints with the off-ground visuals, the rubber ball portions look fine, but the VFX quality tamper the cork ball matches to an extent. Same goes for editing, everything outside the ground is seamlessly handled, unfortunately shot discontinuations do exist in the cricket matches. Appreciable work by the art department, especially with the painting aspect in the story. The efforts of the stunt team are evident on-screen to make the fight sequences as realistic as possible.

Bottomline

The screenplay is engaging throughout, packed with neatly built emotions, laughable comedy moments plus cricket. The minor flaws thankfully don’t affect the totality of the output.

Rating - 3.25/ 5