Pon Manickavel(Disney + Hotstar)
Written & Directed by A. C. Mugil Chellappan
Rating: * ½
If it is Prabhudheva there is got to be dancing, even if he plays no-nonsense cop out to catch a cold-blooded killer.
So the cop cops-out, as songs and dances break into the narrative only so that our righteous hero can shake a leg. It is as out-of-character as Amitabh Bachchan would have been had he broken into singing and dancing in Zanjeer.Some cops just don’t do these things. Prabhudheva’s Pon Manickavel must dance even if he isn’t meant to.
If you have Vyjanthimala in your film she must do the Bharat Natyam or at least Main ka karoon ram . Prabhudheva is the Vyjanthimala of our times.No matter what he plays, he must dance.
Readers must be wondering why I am only speaking about Prabhudeva’s dancing in a predominantly action film . That’s because this film doesn’t have much to offer in any way of a cinematic experience. It is loud, repetitive, crude and so clamorous it can’t hear its own voice drowning in the din of drivel.
Prabhudheva’s cop act takes him through a maze of messy mayhem. Assorted villains,two of whom are played by Hindi actors Sudhanshu Pande and Mukesh Rishi who have no takers in their home domain, play the kind of vile socio-paths who bring ignominy to screen villainy. The way they are shown treating senior cops and politicians and the way the female home minister runs after one of the villains(“Any issues?”) confers the satanic caucus with the most spectacular extra-constitutional powers that our hero must crack.
Remember Amitabh Bachchan barging into badman Ajit’s den in Zanjeer as Bindu sizzled on the dancefloor? Here too Prabhudheva gets on the dancefloor as the cops and villains gawk admiringly.
Every ten minutes someone or the other reminds us of what a great soldier of the law enforcement our hero is, and how lucky we are to have him.Prabhudheva’s Pon Manickavel treats his colleagues with a distant contempt. One of them is bit of a bully,and whom Pon Manickavel insists in calling Baahubali(Bahu-bully?) reforms overnight after his kidnapped daughter is rescued by our cop-hero.
Prabhudheva plays an all-rounder. He is an excellent cop, a good husband(he stays awake in the night to prepare his wife for her exams),a conscientious citizen(he turns vigilante for the wronged) and he respects women(he rescues them from being s*x slaves). In the second-half the cop-hero’s character assumes a light shade of grey. But no worries. It’s all sorted out in time for the final hurrah.
So, does Prabhudheva come out of the mayhem smelling of roses? Not quite. Pon Manickavel is way too short of genuine inspiration to allow the cop-hero’s heroic vigilantism to hit home. It is more a showcase for Prabhudheva than any genuine exploration of the relationship between lawmakers and lawbreakers. Even if you are a diehard fan of the actor you would find it hard to sit through the spasmodic action of this bogus drama.