Kanam Review

'Kanam', starring Sai Pallavi, Baby Veronica and Naga Shaurya, hit the screens this Friday.  Here is our review of this revenge thriller.

Story:

Tulasi (Sai Pallavi) and Krishna ( Naga Shourya) are school sweethearts who have premarital sex and when it is found out, the girl's mother (Rekha) and boy's father (Nizhalgal Ravi) force the youngsters to go for abortion.  

Five years later the couple get married and move into a new apartment.  The aborted child comes to haunt the house as a five-year-old kid and starts killing everyone responsible for her 'death'.  

Tulasi realizes that the final target of 'Diya' is her husband and whether she is able to save him or not forms the rest of the screenplay.

Analysis:

After shining in saleable roles, Sai Pallavi chooses to experiment in the role of a mother in this AL Vijay-directed movie.  For her guts alone, she deserves kudos.  

Although 'Kanam' is a revenge-horror drama with its share of spine-chilling moments, curiously or otherwise, most of us did expect the film to tug the heartstrings rather than scare the daylights out of us.  To this extent, 'Kanam' spares us by not taking its horror aspect too seriously.  There are quite a few emotional moments that induce sadness.  It's to the credit of the writing department, the performers and the director.  The interval scene and the climax portions are where the film comes into its own.  

The script, however, is content with halting emotionalism.  It doesn't go the whole hog. The premise of an unborn child coming back to haunt and kill those responsible is quite interesting in the beginning.  The climax holds some emotions that are lacking in the rest of the screenplay.

If the suspense factor goes for a toss (why did they call it revenge thriller in the first place?), a showreel of contrived scenes does the film in.  

Besides the disinterest in the ethical debate around abortion, the film presents a range of run-of-the-mill tropes: an apartment as the backdrop, uninteresting accidents, unlikely comedians, etc.  

Naga Shourya has nothing much to do and looks out of place throughout.  He is as unimportant as Harshavardhan Rane was in 'Avunu'.  'Naa saavu nenu sattha' Priyadarshi is miscast as a bumbling cop and he fails to score comically and also dilutes much of the credulity in the climax sequence.  Nizhalgal Ravi, Rekha and  Sujitha give the feel of a television serial to the proceedings.  Baby Veronica playing the ghost child is cute but has not been used to the advantage of the film.

Sam C.S's background theme score has given a melancholic twist to his famous 'Vikram Vedha' (Tamil) music.  The TV serial feel in the images makes one wonder if it was indeed Nirav Shah who has cranked the camera. That said, the use of the colour palette (blue and red to convey gloominess and revenge aspects) is interesting.  Antony has done a fair job.  

Verdict:

The very idea of a revenge story with a child at its centre is exciting.  'Kanam', however, suffers from avoidable flaws.  Director Vijay is light-touch the way he was in 'Abhinetri' ('Devi').  Sai Pallavi's performance is fabulous.