Pencil Movie Review
Story :
Shiva (GV Prakash Kumar) is a bright student of a school who is in one side love with his classmate Maaya Devineni (Sri Divya). And then there is this arrogant brat, Nitin (Shaariq Hassan) who is the son of Telugu Superstar Suresh Babu. He is always a trouble maker for other students.
One day, he happens to burn a speech copy prepared by Shiva for two years, to deliver at UNESCO. And then Shiva vows to kill him. Under mysterious conditions, Nitin gets killed with a Pencil and Shiva is in dock. What really happened? Who killed Nitin? How the mystery is unearthed forms the rest.
Performances:
GV Prakash had improved as an actor from his previous film, Trisha Ledha Nayantara. But there is still a big room for development. Good thing is that he is selecting scripts suiting him. Sri Divya has done a nice job as Maaya. She is seen as a brave girl with good clarity on life. Shaariq Hassan is an asset to the film as he walks through the role effortlessly. VT Ganeshan tickles the funny bone to some extent while others are fine in their roles.
Technical Performances:
Mani Nagaraj came up with a wafer thin story for the film and had chosen a okay-ish screenplay. The major flaw with the film is its narration. The story is narrated in a way that we can easily predict what is going to happen next. The suspense point in the film which should be the cash point falls flat. So Mani Nagaraj is a disappointment to a great extent in his debut film.
GV Prakash came up with a mediocre album with disappointing tunes. Further the Telugu adaptation only made them worse. However he did good job with the back ground score. Gopi Amarnath’s camera work is too good. The lighting and framing enhanced the mood of the film. Anthony should have been more careful with his scissors. Rajeevan did a good job with his art work. The stunts composed by Super and Dileep Subbarayan are nice. Production values are good.
Plus Points:
1. Anatogonist role by Shaariq Hassan
2. Cinematography by Gopi Amarnath
Minus Points :
1. Predictable narration
2. Songs by GV Prakash Kumar
Final Say:
The first half of the thriller film is used only for establishing the characters and conflicts between the leads. Some okay-ish entertainment but no thrilling elements, makes it so-so stuff. The second half where the establishing the murderer needs to be tight and gripping, is let off by poor narration. All in all, Pencil ends up as a below average murder mystery.
