Papanasam

The best thing about Papanasam is how convincingly it makes us forget the original Drishyam, and manages to stand on its own. The film is almost a frame-by-frame remake of the Malayalam film and still, it doesn't give that vibe of being a remake. The small town setting, where everyone knows one another, is crucial to the plot and Jeethu Joseph's convinvingly sets his slow-burning crime thriller in picturesque Papanasam. Right from the slang, the local milieu is so well realized that the film transports us to the place.

Script-wise, there are no major changes save for the fact that the protoganist Suyambulingam (Kamal Haasan) is a markedly different character from that of the original's George Kutty. Mohanlal nicely underplayed the role and gave us the impression of a man who was confident of winning the cat-and-mouse game he was playing with the cops, Kamal Haasan makes the character more emotional and we see a man who cannot afford to lose. This approach makes Suyambulingam one among us, so in addition to caring for the character, we begin to see every problem that he encounters as our own.

Suyambulingam is someone who has made it big in life all by himself and he takes pride in the fact. His cable TV business serves as a perfect outlet for his obsessive cinema watching (he even stays up at his office during the night to watch movies on TV and goes home only in the mornings). But what he cares the most is his family — his wife Rani (Gauthami, decent in her comeback role) and daughters Selvi (Nivetha Thomas) and Meena (Esther Anil). When Selvi is blackmailed by Varun (Roshan), who has shot a scandalous video of her, the situation goes out of control and the boy ends up dead. Suyambulingam will not let his family suffer and so, hatches upon an elaborate plot — inspired by the movies he has watched and his innate street smartness — to create water-tight alibis. But his opponent, Geetha Prabhakar (Asha Sarath), is equally clever; she is a woman, a mother and a co...

Every act is fair from their own perspective!

The title represents a small town where the story takes place. An opportunity to see the old Kamal Haasan. It was like been ages, seen him in this kind of attire, especially Tirunelveli accent was phenomenal. As usual, his performance and expressions stole the show and none others were matched his par in the movie. Nothing wrong to call it was his show. Kind of addicted to 'Yeya En Kottikkaara' song. A typical Tamil song, if you are, you might feel the deep.

It was a remake of the Malayalam movie 'Drishyam', which was inspired by the Japanese novel 'The Devotion of Suspect X'. I have not seen the original movie, but seen the Japanese version based on the same book. There are no major comparisons, except the crime, the rest was completely rewritten to suit the Indian audience. But the writer denies, by saying neither book adaptation nor inspired.

I have heard that the narration was very emotional and the characters were more guilt feel than the Malayalam. Initially Rajnikath was considered for the main role, but happy it went to Kamal Haasan. None other than him would have suited better to portray Suyambulingam. He would definitely bring the emotions out of you easily. After Sivaji, he's the king of those roles. At the plenty of the scenes I was amazed by his execution, especially in the end scene when he finally breakdown with guilt.

I don't believe when people say the original version is a must watch. Every film industry in India has fine actors, especially this film recruited their best as of I have heard. So I recommend your native version or the closest one to opt. The advantage in the remakes are, a chance to fix if there were any flaws in the original. Since it was directed by the same filmmaker, I strongly suggest the neural audience to pick between the original and this one, because of the naturalistic portrayal of the rural family. But if you prefer stylish, especially for the non-Indian, there's a...