Blackmail Review - An Amateurishly Made Monotonous Thriller!

Ashwin Ram

Blackmail is a dramatic thriller starring GV Prakash, Srikanth and Bindu Madhavi in the lead roles. Directed by Mu.Maaran of Iravukku Aayiram Kangal fame and the music is scored by Sam.C.S.

Premise:

Srikanth and Bindu Madhavi decide to visit Ooty for a weekend getaway. GV Prakash kidnaps their little kid for personal reasons. He blackmails and receives the ransom money, but misses the child elsewhere. How they rescue the child forms the remaining story.

Writing/ Direction:

Like the title suggests, it is a story where someone gets kidnapped and the loved ones are blackmailed for money. Just because the title is kept as such, every character in the story is either a blackmailer or a victim of one. It feels like the director was pre-determined to make an interlink story, for which he has created a crime world where everyone forcefully crosses each other's paths. There is a flow to the film, but nothing tends to be organic and is filled with randomness. The pre-interval play taking place at a mall is interesting, but the film never gets hold of it and gains momentum, except for that particular segment, there is absolutely no smartness in the screenplay. As it is the emotional connection is on the ground level, the relentless series where the kidnappers keep switching from one another makes it a dull watch, after a point we don’t really care about what is going on. The same plot-point is repeated with different characters, making the proceedings tiresome. The intentions might vary, but the involvement of the characters in the crime is easily predictable. There is a sense of lethargicness in the making, as many basic factors are dealt carelessly. Lip sync issues exist in almost all the scenes. The continuity issue in a plenty of places is bothersome with respect to Ramesh Thilak’s beard. An item song is placed for no reason, that too with a strange setup. Amateurish direction in the first place, the way performances are extracted is a complete bummer and what not. Amidst the chaos, the unintentional comedy between Muthu Kumar and Redin Kingsley was a timepass.

Performances:

GV Prakash has played his part by maintaining his subtle on-screen nature. Took some time to adapt, yet actor Muthu Kumar has done well and scores with his witty mindless humour. Ramesh Thilak’s fake beard was a hindrance and with that it was difficult to focus on his performance. Srikanth goes overboard with his artificial melodramatic expressions at several instances. Bindu Madhavi struggles to act and her emotions never land as intended. The same usual noisy Redin Kingsley is showcased, which works in parts. Linga gets a weak negative role which he has tried to look better. The unknown faces are worse than the popular artists, such fake display of performances from all the new actors who appear for a scene or two.

Technicalities:

Sam.C.S’ songs are unimpressive along with the flow, both the montage tracks and the item number were disappointments. Despite his regular style of stock thriller scores, music tries to create some sort of hold, but nothing can save the terrible flow of events. Gokul Benoy’s camerawork is neat, nothing exceptional with the approach, he has simply delivered what is expected out of a thriller. Generally, if you touch the edit pattern of an interlink thriller, the entire structure will collapse, it's the opposite pole here, there is a lot of scope to chop-off stuff, however the editor cannot be blamed.

Bottomline

Every aspect is overdone in this thriller which is all about lethargic writing and poor making. Never gripping, in fact the characters suck our interests and barely make us care about the kidnappers or the victims.

Rating - 2/ 5