HAPPY RAJ Review - Definitely not a happy outing!

Ashwin Ram

Premise: GV Prakash and Sri Gauri Priya are in a relationship, their parents whole heartedly accept them as well. It results in embarrassment when the elderly people of the families meet first, the basic village versus city differences form the crux of the story.

Writing/ Direction: More than GV Prakash, George Maryan is the central character who drives the story. The important parts heavily rely on his shoulders, the initial portion establishes how George Maryan physical appearance impacts his son GV Prakash from his childhood, the interval block opens the conflict by fronting how George Maryan’s noviceness backfires due to the locality the situation is placed, and the climax closing all brackets by giving character closures. But even in these so-called highlight portions, there are flaws with the opening stretch lacking details, the midpoint being lengthy and the finale having staging issues. Because of the flaws in the setup, the ending feels forceful and convenient, it works to an extent solely because of George Maryan’s innocent presence. The tone is monotonous throughout, almost every scene is treated in an exaggerated manner. The director has tried too hard to evoke laughter and not even a single joke is memorable or works momentarily, a reflection of terrible writing. Except for the leads, George Maryan and Geetha Kailasam… poor casting choices, including Abbas and GV Prakash’s mates, everybody is annoying in the film. Randomly placed Premgi cameo, scenes with zero coherence add to the already aching flow. The director thinks GV Prakash is a Superstar, like we have witnessed dancing and racing references for Vijay and Ajith respectively, here there is a moment where GV is insulted for being bad at music and the man breaks the third wall with a tight stare. The storyworld itself is bizarre, the Bangalore IT office backdrop for example, the cringe talks and behaviour of all artists appear to be so lame. Follows the Dragon template with two hours of fun and an emotional last reel with George Maryan playing the father role, but here the output has literally no impact. Many subplots with Prathana Nathan, in fact there is a small flashback that summarises the subject, the incoherent pieces of paper do not form effectively.

Performances: GV Prakash’s lookset fits the mood of the film, but is it good is a separate question. He still struggles to convince during the emotional parts where he needs to be expressive. Calculated and measured performance from Sri Gouri Priya that seems to be neat on-screen. George Maryan is the lifeline of the film and he does very well, contributing in whatever way he could. Geetha Kailasam is capable in pulling-off anything and everything, she fits the modern culture nicely but however her portions in the second half are totally unnecessary and only consumes time with no value-addition. Stone faced performance, but more than that, Abbas’ Tamil speaking is a tough ask, plus the inefficient role he has got fails to make his re-entry special.

Technicalities:  Probably it is Justin Prabhakaran’s most commercial album, especially with respect to the ‘Aadine Irupen’ song, the soulful number is his forte and he has done a good job. Apt background score in the emotional portions, but he comes up with the template outright sounds instead of music notes for the intended comedy portions. Simple camera work with nothing really fresh, but manages to provide what is required for the film. Tasteless editing with no proper scene order, if placements were planned ahead instead of squeezing all the sentiment aspects in the end, the finale would have had some sort of an impact.

Verdict: Nonstop cringe humour tends to be irritating, the nasty directorial tone of the flow makes it much worse. With someone like George Maryan in the front, it would have at least worked emotionally fine if only the writing and staging were done right.

HAPPY RAJ - Definitely not a happy outing!

Rating - 2/5.