Payanam - Movie review

I consider Radhamohan as Rajkumar Hirani of the south. As Prakashraj describes very often, Radha looks at the world through a different lens. He has a very subtle and simple way of dealing even emotional and sensitive subjects. Who could forget Mozhi ? He takes the same approach to this hijack subject. But the re is a bit of overdose of humor in payanam that you wonder whats happened to the main story.

As usual the dialogues make you roll on the floor laughing. The passengers are seated as pairs of opposite poles - an atheist and an astrologer, an upcoming movie star and his fan and so on. These present situations for a laugh riot and Radha doesn't miss a beat. The director - actor combo that appear post interval takes the cake off the others for sure. The film also has some emotional points thrown here and there, which makes you feel sorry even for the terrorists. Kudos to Prakashraj for producing a neat and decent movie yet again !

Nagarjuna's underplay and heroism would be the crowd puller for the Telugu version. Prakashraj, M.S. Baskar, Manobala, Brahmanandham, Thalaivaasal Vijay and the other support cast fit like T to their roles.  The special effects department and the set direction could have been better. You could spot  pathetic glitches in these in some frames. A Frontech headphones for the cockpit?? This movies has no songs, but the background score is good. Lighting and camera must have been easy since there were only a few locations.

The film takes off with a great promise and sails the smooth skies till the hijackers take over the plane. (Don't worry about spoilers in this review, there aren't any, because there is no suspense in the movie anyway) Radha has told in his interviews that he wanted to present hijack through the eyes of the passengers, news reporters, terrorists and the commandos. But I'm afraid the  different views shown  here are far from anything real. There was a huge lack of background research. The single emotion  - fear - that  must dominate  the  victims and hence the audience was missing. You have bits and pieces of all emotions.

We are a nation who are "used" to so many forms of terrorist acts and so would expect something more gripping than a laugh riot in a subject like this.