Pravinkoodu Shappu Review - Just a Moderately Brisk Police Procedural!
Ashwin Ram
Pravinkoodu Shappu is a crime thriller starring Basil Joseph, Soubin Shahir and Chemban Vinod Jose in the lead roles. Directed by Sreeraj Sreenivasan.
Premise:
The owner of a Toddy shop is found dead by hanging. Basil Joseph is the cop who takes up the case, instantly figures that it is a murder and suspects the shop employees. Who is behind the crime and the motive unfolds in the remaining story.
Writing/ Direction:
The narrative flows by the cops separately investigating the people who were all present in a crime scene. The characters and their perspectives, plus the multiple elements in the murder location offer us with interesting stretches. The screenplay is engaging to an extent, but it isn’t intriguing enough to invest us into the story. The writing is feeble at many places, especially for the fact of randomly appearing intuitions and narrowing down a person as the murderer, rather than the interrogations leading to the actual criminal organically. The interval block for example is so rushed, just to pause with a surprise, the attempt is useless as it is brought up forcefully out of nowhere. The lengthy fight sequence and song montages have been captured and presented with utmost sincerity, which in fact add value as the core subject has a connection to the happenings. The twist might not work due to the artist selection, drawback in casting a big star will eventually lead to predictability. The best part is the reasoning and the believable execution of the assault. The drama does become meaningful and effective after the revelation, but an incomplete open ending does not make any sense. Also, there is no closure to Basil Joseph’s childhood trauma that was anyway touched just as an overview.
Performances:
Basil Joseph yet again gets an unique characterization and delivers a striking presence, especially his reactions when his intuitions become right are ultimate. Soubin Shahir is such a versatile actor, solid performance to be precise and he translated the emotions so well. The way Chandini Sreedharan carried herself on-screen is nothing short of a clever mind and beautiful attitude. Weak arc for Chemban Vinod Jose, though he puts up a neat act, the end result is only on the ground level.
Technicalities:
Appreciable efforts with genre shifts in music within the space offered, both the soulful melodies and the swag rap numbers click. Background score is also efficient in heating up the usual situations with ample usage of bass sound. Lovely camera work, the night shots look crystal clear with perfect brightness level, the wide establishment shots are admirable too. Parts of the screenplay circle around the same spot for a time period, which could have been smartly corrected at the edit table, by crisply displaying the subject. Top quality stunt choreography, the intended to be single-shot action stretch was amazing, the execution looked so realistic and powerful at the same time.
Bottomline
A worthy source material that has a touching core plot and enough elements to pack a decent whodunit. But the inconsistent screenwriting and dry execution with lack of high points result in just a regular format thriller with nothing great to offer.
Rating - 2.5/ 5