After that not much successful 'Pachamarathanalil', young director Leo Thaddhevoos is back with a new offering 'Payyans'. The movie promoted as a trendy flick actually has some nice moments, but they are few and far in-between.
The movie clearly inspired from the Russian flick 'The Return', packs in a lot in the former half to look as a desy stuff ( In fact leo's ' Pachamarathanalil' was also an intelligent ripoff of Maniratnam's 'Kannathil Muthamittal') . Payyans has Jayasuriya in the title role as Josy, a lazy lad who doesn't want to try too hard to make a living. Unable to complete his engineering due to consistent failures in a few papers, he takes life a little too easy and lives in a huge bungalow, with his mother Padma (Rohini). His dad John Varghese, a marine engineer is said to have died in an attack by the LTTE, when Josy was three years old.
Padma finds it too hard to make ends meet as she had taken a huge loan for Josy's studies and for buying the bunglow, that was a dream home of Josy's dad. After much insistence from his mother, Josy takes up as job as a radio jockey and there he falls in love with Seema (Anjali) , a sound engineer in the same FM. But certain incidents towards the midway forces Josy to move out of his home, leaving his mother alone and within a few days he finds her resting in the ICU unit of the hospital, yearning for life. The second half is totally different from the former in storylines where our irresponsible youth is forced to come of age and turn mature than ever. The pacing and looks in this half is more composed and appealing, though the climax looks a little hurried. But the problem with the movie is that the director who is also credited with the scripts, lacks the consistency in writing. Actually, the story appear disjointed at times in the attempts to fill in the sequences that force laughter. The former half reminds you of ' Ivar Vivaahithrayaal' in Jayan's character constructions. It's this try for the formulaic component, to inject humour and to push in the preachy message, that robs the quality off this film. Had Leo struck to being more factual without that pointless dumb comedies, 'Payyans' would've been a far more convincing and persuasive effort than it is in its present form.
Jayasurya once again fits the role like a 'T' and manages to save some sequences with his timing. Anjali, who lands into Mollywood after her much approved performance in the Tamil hit Angaditheru, has got a role that is not worth remembering. She appears to have gained much weight but looks pretty for the insignificant role. Lal as a strict father enacts his role perfectly while Rohini also make an impressive performance in her role. Suraj Venjarammoodu repeats his trademark pranks but Janardhanan, Pakru and others are wasted in undemanding roles.
In the technical side, S G Raman's visuals are fine while a couple of songs by Alphonse' are foot tapping and good, visualised in an effective manner. Payyans is a movie that may not work extremely well at the Box Office. But if marketed well, the movie has the potential to bring back the money spent on it. Will be more effective if marketed as a family flick.
Rating 2.5/ 5
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