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Star Cast: Vijay, Shruti Haasan,Sridevi, Sudeep, Hansika Motwani, Nandita Swetha
Director: Thameens, S. Narayan, Pahlaj Nihalani
What’s Good: Puli truly stands out with its costumes. The fantasy film scores on its visual appeal.
What’s Bad: Too many songs! The film should have been termed a musical rather than a warrior film.
Loo Break: Every song could count one!
Watch or Not?: If you are a die-hard Vijay fan then you may but if you are looking for something unique, the film will fail you. It creates an illusion of being smart but in reality, it lacks any kind of logic.
User Rating:
If you have read Harry Potter, then it is simple to understand the story of Puli. Magadheera ( Vijay) is the chosen one who is destined to save his village. That being the basic plot, the film’s mythical setting revolves around normal people ( just like muggles) and Vetal people who have blue eyes, clawed teeth and can fly. As usual there is a good vs evil element and Magadheera takes upon himslef to save his village.
Magadheera is in love with his childhood friend played by Shruti Haasan. Their love story blooms and just when marraige is on the cards, the queen of Vetals, Yamanarani (Sridevi) captures her and imprisons her in her kingdom. Why? We learn during the climax. In the meanwhile, Magadheera decides to enter the dreaded kingdom of Vetals but in disguise.
Will be successful in saving the life of his loved one and will he set the village free from the clutches of the evil queen is what the story revolves around.
Puli Review: Script Analysis
Puli is like a children’s fairytale where birds speak, there is a tortoise who gives life lessons. But well, it’s not really a children’s film. Chimbu Deven paints a picture of a fantasy world which at start seems interesting but as the time passes, you realize, there is nothing more to it. There are concepts like magic potion in the film on one hand and on the other there are jokes being made at the expense marriages and first nights. The writers seem to lazy to care about creating any character with enough detailing other than Magadheera. They try to keep his image comical with an edge of action. Imagination has no limits and hence one of Magadheera’s sidekicks has two mustaches, one over his lip and the other on the head. It is probably supposed to be funny but doesn’t quite work.
There is not much development in the story during the first half as we are forced to watch our male lead’s dancing and romancing skills. Typically, the second half takes us into his past. The characters of Sridevi, Sudeep and Hansika Motwani are introduced in the second half but they hardly make add any spice to the already boring story.
Puli Review: Star Performance
Ilayathalapathy Vijay tries hard to impress us with his wit and action as Magadheera but does not completely excel at it. This is certainly not Vijay’s best work, in fact we miss his action which takes back seat in this film. Unfortunately, the character itself is not well-crafted and hence Vijay does not turn out impressive.
Sridevi looks gorgeous as the evil queen. Her body language too is amazingly arrogant, just perfect for the role. Sadly, her character is not a big one and I wish we could have seen more of her in the film.
Sudeep as the antagonist is quite average. Other than giving mean looks and waving his hair, he does little in the film.
Shruti Haasan acts less and dances more in this film. Her character has no depth and all she does in the film is indulge in ample of titillating skin show.
Hansika Motwani who is the side heroine has a ‘damsel in distress’ character hence she has only one expression the whole time.
Puli Review: Music, Direction
Chimbudevan tries hard to present us a fantasy film that will appeal us with its creativity but unfortunately that doesn’t happen. The best thing that he manages is the entire look of the characters and overall visual effects of the film. Full credits to the costume and art direction departments for their magnificent work.
The music is average but the number of songs in the film are much more than required and that only results in an unnecessarily increasing run-time of the film. The background score is typically loud, the sort that you find in every period drama or superhero kind of South films.
Action scenes are well-crafted but at certain points, they seem too violent. In one of the scenes we see a young girl’s throat being slit. It is quite harsh to show such scenes on celluloid. The highlight of the second half is Sridevi and if only, the director had thought of using more of her, the film could have been much more watchable.
Puli Review: The Last Word
Puli could have been an interesting film but a shoddy script and lose editing pull this film down. I am going with a 2/5 for this fantasy drama.
Puli Trailer
Puli releases on 2nd October, 2015.
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