Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

Well, if you ask me to give an honest feedback of Puli in just two words, I would say boring and disappointing. Memories of SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali is still lingering in our minds and that too in freshess mode where we saw what perfect visual effects and CGI’s can do to a film. Of course there was solid content in Rajamouli’s movie and was also aided by an enormous budget to make it a near perfect period movie. Here I am not comparing two films but the perfection that was clearly visible in one film in some areas that played a crucial part shows just the opposite in another movie in a similar genre.

Now coming to Chimbu Devan’s Puli, we could easily make out the poor quality visual effects and how quality has been compromised on many places to make the film get an unappealing feel to it. Leaving that aspect aside, Puli for the attempt from the makers is to be applauded but poor making, a threadbare storyline and a non engaging screenplay makes the movie a disappointing one.

The story revolves around a group of people who has Marudheeran played by Vijay’s character leading them. There is a Kingdom named Vedhalapuram whose army attacks the village and kidnap Pavanamalli who is Marudheeran’s love interest. Rest of the movie has Marudheeran’s search for his love that ultimately lands him in Vedhalapuram where he has to face off with the queen of the Kingdom and her chief commander.

A period film makeover is the basic factor in the movie and the making side fails to bring in perfection to put forth the plot matching the way they conceived this idea. At many places the movie lags which in turn offer boredom. Adding to the woes and discomfort of the audience is an out of place romance between Vijay and Shruthi Hassan that at no point synchronise with the storyline. Also the comedy part took a heavy toll increasing the boredom further.

The final half hour or so is the only place which has some energy but it was too late to bring something positive out of the film. Chimbu Devan has in fact conceived something big here but when it came to the execution part, lack of perfection coupled with a lifeless screenplay pulled down the movie to make it a tiring watch.

On the performance side, Vijay as Marudheeran was good in parts and on some occasions we could see an element of overacting in his performance. By the by that make up and looks he chose in this period film was something that should have been taken care of. Shruthi Hassan as the female lead has nothing to do and is a cliched heroine character we see in a normal Tamil movie.

Sreedevi was a misfit in that role and her expressions mostly closeup shots created an irritating feel. Sudheep as the commander-in-chief of Vedhalapuram was okay while Hansika also just like her counterpart Shruthi didn’t have a major role to play. Prabhu, Thambi Ramaiah, Robo Shankar are also part of the cast.

Cinematography was good while editing had its flaws. The one positive thing to have come out is how the action scenes have been choreographed. Songs didn’t make much of an impact and mostly all of them very timed very poorly in the movie. Visual effects as I said is below par and art department also didn’t do their homework well.

With a dull screenplay and an imperfect execution, Puli falls flat. One of the tagline of the movie says “A fantasy adventure like never seen before”. Well, I have some serious reservations on that. Yes the topic has an element of fantasy and adventure in it but if you say this is a never seen stuff, then the makers are making a fool out of themselves. My rating for Puli is a disappointing one and a half out of five. Thumbs down👎to Ilayathalapathy this time.