Neruppuda - All smoke and little fire

Vikram Prabhu the heir apparent to the legacy of Sivaji Ganesan undoubtedly possesses the talents and the screen presence. His choice of scripts, however is highly questionable that too from a trained actor and his maiden production venture ‘Neruppuda’ sadly is filled with smoke and little fire.

Guru (Virkam Prabhu) is the son of a sewage worker Manickam (Ponvannan) who, along with his four friends played by Mahat Raghavandra, Rajkumar and two other newcomers, runs a private fire engine service. The hero’s group is always ahead of the government fire service in rescuing people and the zonal officer promises to help them get jobs in his department. Guru meanwhile meets Vasumathi(Nikki Galrani) and it is love at first sight for both. A dreaded gangster Puliyanthoppu Ravi (Madhusoodhanan)’s henchman Sadha (Vincent Ashokan) is accidently killed by Mahat. Guru assumes the crime on himself and goes against the gangster and what happens next is told with many insipid twists and turns that lead to a blatantly loud climax.

Vikram Prabhu has no doubt put in a sincere effort and has acquitted himself well in the action sequences, sentiment scenes and romance too. It is time for him to take a cue from his celebrated dad who, after a string of flops made a comeback as part of an ensemble cast in films like ‘Palaivana Rojaakkal’ in which he played the fifth role after Lakshmi, Sathyaraj, Nalini and Janagaraj but stole the show with his towering performance. The Ilayathilagam went on to enjoy a long stint as one of the most bankable heroes for decades. Nikki Galrani who is considered a lucky mascot appears for two songs and a few scenes. Mottai Rajendran as an imbecile counselor irritates with his high decibel voice and hollow character while Madhusoodhan as the gangster provides unintentional comedy thanks to his badly etched character. Ponvannan as the sewage worker impresses while Mahat has the meatier role among the friends. Sangeetha makes a comeback in a surprise role during the climax and her loud makeup and even louder dialogue delivery is an assault on the audience’s already numb senses.

While every emotion right from the friends, camaraderie to the surprise villain’s love story in the end is all fake, the interactions between Vikram Prabhu and Ponvannan is natural. The film has no vulgar or crass scenes and does have some good intentions in it.

On the steep downside the staging of the actors and the camera is straight out of a eighties film. For example, when Nikki Galrani is abducted by the villain her parents get into position in front of the camera and deliver the news to the hero as a dialogue sans emotions. The dialogues are pedestrian and though there are many twists in the screenplay none of it helps the story move forward. The writer director wants his film to be a silly comedy, a whodunit, a thriller, a gangster flick and a romance all at once and fails in every count.

Sean Rolden shows his class in the songs and his background too is in sync with the telling. R. D Rajasekhar makes his presence felt while Thiagu obviously cannot do much when the writing is this bad. B. Ashok Kumar with a bunch of talented people around him manages only to make a film that is regressive in content as well as story telling.

Verdict: Go for it if you are die hard fan of Vikram Prabhu