Pantham Movie Review
Pantham… For A Cause! directed by K. Chakravarthy is a routine film with the Robin Hood theme. Protagonist steals from the rich and corrupted and serves the poor. Gopichand picked up a time tested plot for his twenty fifth movie.
story:
Vikranth Surana (Gopichand) is the son of a world class industrialist. He comes to India for the Silver Jubilee celebrations of an ashram founded by his mother. Vikranth comes to see the poor people being looted by the corrupted leaders and turns into a thief. He selectively targets some politicians and steals crores of rupees from them. Vikranth eventually gets caught and exposes the dark deeds of the politicians.
Performances:
Gopichand is very handsome and stylish in the film. His character has two shades and he carries it with ease. However, there is nothing to challenge his capabilities as an actor. Mehreen once again plays a run and around the trees kind of shallow character. She has nothing much to do except for looking glamorous in front of the camera. Sampath Raj is alright as the bad guy. Comedy penned for Prudhvi’s character is outdated. Srinivasa Reddy, Tanikella Bharani, Jayaprakash Reddy and all other noted supporting actors are given characters they usually play in most of the films.
Technicalities:
Director Chakravarthy’s script is as old as hills. He picked up a routine plot and wrote a very ordinary screenplay. Predictable direction, outdated narration and unexciting scenes make Pantham a tedious watch.
Music by Gopi Sunder is bad. None of the songs are catchy and on top of that they are terribly misplaced. Cinematography is good. The film has grand visuals. Editing is adequate. Production values are laudable.
Thumbs Up:
Gopichand
Climax episode
Thumbs Down:
Routine plot
Uninteresting screenplay
Bad music
Analysis:
Many films were made in the past with the theme corruption. There are some notable films like Gentleman, Bharateeyudu, Tagore, etc. that proved this theme to be a blockbuster material. Directors stopped picking this theme as it ran out of steam. None of the films could bring any change in the system as it still remains corrupted. Director Chakravarthy believed that there is still some juice left in this theme to make it work at box office. He might have succeeded had he got the formula right. There is an attempt to mix entertainment and emotion to make it commercially work. But poorly written scenes and weak screenplay turned out to be its biggest weakness.
Second half seems better compared to cliched first half. There is scope to make the first half an engaging one as the protagonist sketches plots to steal huge sum of money. Robberies are too cinematic and unreal to believe. Direction has been unimaginative in these scenes that they end up unexciting. There’s a track involving Prudhvi which was supposed to be humorous, but it hardly works due to bad writing. Even the track on heroine is just an excuse to place some songs in between. Action part is over the top with the superman protagonist being able to deal with any number of men.
There’s some story in the second half though. Protagonist’s back story and the noble theme are okay to watch. Climax is predictably set in a courtroom and it is the best part of the movie. Dialogues in this scene are impressive. Problems raised by the protagonist make us think, but that they aren’t easy to implement in real life. A better second half and Climax saves it from being a total dud, but Pantham lacks the muscle to stay strong at the box office. It may end up as an average fare in mass dominated areas, but it isn’t good enough to end the bad streak of Gopichand at box office. With so many films lined up for release in the coming weeks, Pantham has little time to make an impression. Sadly, it isn’t loaded with enough masala to withstand the competition.
Bottom-line: Nothing Special
