Movie: Nibunan
Direction: Arun Vaidyanathan
Cast: Arjun Sarja, Prasanna, Vaibhav, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, Sruthi Hariharan
Music: S Navin
Cinematographer: Arvind Krishna
Editor: Sathish Suriya
Genre: Thriller, Crime
Rating: ∗∗
What is it about: It’s an action thriller, which revolves around a serial killer, who challenges the Police Department. How the cat and mouse game between the killer and the police play out forms the crux of the story directed by Arun Vaidyanathan.
Why it’s disappointing: Thrillers in Indian Cinema are heavily inspired by Hollywood flicks or Korean films. The influence is so much that originality and creativity takes a major hit with the creators down here. They get so involved in mimicking, that they forget their potential and make a fool of themselves. But there are directors who can mimic well, but there are those who can’t, and Nibuan falls in the latter category.
In the process of making the introduction scene a mass one, director makes the entry of the lead Arjun a funny one, wonder was it the idea of the director or Action King Arjun himself to have a tattoo of Indian flag which appears in the beginning, post which a cheesy conversation where Varalaxmi and Prasanna are all praise about the actor in the film, who go on for a shootout with criminals. Recently there was a film released which had an opening shoot out scene played out to its best without any added gimmicks in establishing the lead character. Now that’s what you call direction not the one we saw in “Nibunan”.
The film is heavily inspired by Hollywood films and it infuses the “Arushi” murder case in between to extend the play. And have borrowed the inspiration from Hindi film “Talvar”. In the process of following these inspirations Arun Vaidyanathan, forgets the screenplay which wanders misleading the audience on suspense and finally forces in the final twist for the sake of ending it with a revelation.
Arjun, who is a well-seasoned veteran couldn’t take this forward as the screenplay was weak and at the same time, even Arjun was not at the top of his game. Action was fine, nothing great. This being 150th film, they could have made a much better outfit to respect it.
Varalaxmi, who is known for her amazing performances was taken for granted and her character was not up to the mark, she couldn’t do anything but go with the flow.
Prasanna, was shown as a joker with lame one liners and dialogues. So was Vaibhav, still wonder why he was in the film, and was it to just fill in the blanks???
What to watch out for: The good aspects of the film were the technical team. The cinematography was neat by Arvind Krishna, even though there was a major drop in the quality in most of the scenes. Arvind manages to deliver a good one. The editing was good by Sathish Suriya. Music by Navin was average, so was the background score. The sound mix was good by Sync Cinema, but the decibel level should have been at an appropriate level, which would have made the experience a better one.
Verdict: Arun Vaidyanathan, delivered an uncooked thriller which struggles to engage the audience. Being an action thriller it lacked the insanity required for both the genre. Definitely can give this one a miss.
