Actor Srikanth’s last film as the lead actor in Tamil was ‘Paagan’ that released in the year 2012. Now ‘Om Shanthi Om’ written and directed by debutante Surya Prabhakar has released with Srikanth as the hero and this film was reportedly wrapped up in 2013 and has made to the screens after long struggles. The trailer promised an interesting thriller packed with suspense and there was considerable pre release positive buzz about the film in Social media. How has the film turned out to be?
Vasu (Srikanth) is a manager in a car showroom in Trichy. He falls in love at first sight for Shanthi (Neelam) who reciprocates his feelings. Vasu suddenly meets a group of strangers who seek his help in fulfilling their wishes. Only after a point Vasu learns that they are actually the spirits of dead people wandering for their unfulfilled wishes. The rest is how Vasu fulfills the last wish of each of them for their attaining salvation and how this impacts his personal life.
The film’s story line exactly matches with that of the Suriya-Nayanthara starrer ‘Mass’ directed by Venkat Prabhu that released a few months back. We cannot entirely avoid the inadvertent clash of ideas and story lines in creative field. Usually in cases of such stark similarities, the film that releases on a later period will be released after making some changes but for a film releasing after being on the shelf for two years, such patch works are nearly impossible.
Sadly ‘Om Shanthi Om’ does not satisfy even if we watch it with the mindset of giving the concessions for the disadvantages and struggles it has suffered. The writing and execution are weak and boring to say the least. Many ideas used by the hero to fulfill the wishes of spirits are unconvincing and unimpressive except the one he uses to expose a medical mafia network in the first half. The portions of medical college seat scam would have been an interesting and untouched idea on paper but it has not transpired well on screen. This apart, the writer-director’s attempts to maintain suspense over certain portions of the film till a point, merely end up as uninteresting hide and seek games as all the hidden details could be easily guessed well before they are explicitly revealed in the film. The attempts to induce humor and make us laugh with archaic kind of one-liners are tests for patience. Songs appear at the moment you think it would come.
Srikanth shows earnestness and gives a committed performance. Neelam comes over as another good looking lover and not so matured lover of the hero. Junior Baliah has given a nuanced performance, Naren is menacing as the lead villain while ‘Naan Kadavul Rajendran’ evokes a few guffaws here and there.
Vijay Ebinezer’s songs could not have been bad if one listens to them as a music album. But almost all of them suffer due to the bad placement in the film. Re-recording is passable.
The detailing of the bus accident scene towards the climax can be mentioned as one of the praiseworthy aspects of the film. The credit for this should go to the cinematographer Bhaskaran K.M and Editor Vivek Harshan apart from the writer.
If the intention behind making a film like ‘Om Shanthi Om’ was to present a horror-comedy or an engaging commercial thriller or a touching emotional flick or the combination of all these, none of them have been achieved well.
Verdict - Fails to impress
Rating- 1/5
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