Pizza Review

Released amidst low expectations in Telugu, this Karthick Subbaraj directorial is a must-watch (almost) film.  With right toppings in the form of a neat screenplay, deft camera work, eerie sound effects and nice background score, the movie manages to leave a mark.

The curious thing about this thrilling horror-romance with unfamiliar faces is that it offers goosebumps more after the bad spirit takes a retreat after scaring the day lights out of the hero.  As a shaken and stirred Michael searches for Anu, who may be either real or a mere hallucination, it becomes an edge-of-the-seat thriller.

Well, there is more than this.  A superb twist minutes before the climax is stunning, to say the least.

The film begins with a live-in couple (Michael and Anu) watching on television a spooky serial.  The scene wraps up with Anu, a witchcraft enthusiast and aspiring writer, narrating a real-life experience of a dead person coming back alive and appearing before her very eyes many times in the past.  True to her novelist self, she raises the quotient by saying to a astounded boy friend, who now seems to be ambivalent about the existence of devil, "Your moment is waiting."

Moments after they marry in a closed-door ceremony (with only God as the witness), we see a petrified Michael, with stains of blood on his face, repeating Anu's name with terror on his face, as if to indicate that she may be dead.  He starts narrating what happened moments back.

In a nocturnal twist of sorts, Michael ended up being caught in a terrifying situation when he went to a building to deliver pizzas.  This elaborate episode has the film's spookiest frames in store (not very excellent but definitely watchable for the suspense element underpinning it all).  Two murders, a Standard V girl pointing to the pictures of her dead parents, calls to a disconnected land phone, Anu herself unavailable on the mobile, so on, so forth.

The mystery is unraveled in a well-narrated and well-executed second half.  The novelty lies in the twist and how the devil itself, in an intriguing manner, seeks to deliver poetic justice.

Pizza, to be sure, is not a groundbreaking film.  But it is immensely watchable for the story and the simplicity.

Watch the clever conversations of the couple.  When Michael says to his spirits-aficionado wife about her boss's daughter, who has been possessed with spirit, she repeats that his moment has come.  This is immediately followed by a song where we see the couple trying to scare each other, on again and off again.  The pizza is a leitmotif in the long episode, wherein one part goes missing after one murder.

Vijay Sethupathy, who did a comical role in 'Naduvula Konjam Pakkathai Kanom', a role with negative shades in 'Sundarapandian', now he plays a role that combines all in one.  Ramya Nambeesan (seen in Nuvvila) plays her part well. She gives right expressions and adds pep to the proceedings. Also in the cast are Naren, Pooja, Jaykumar and Veera Sethuraman.

A couple of songs in the form of mobile ring tones are situation-based, which don't affect the flow of the movie.

Verdict:  With all the right ingredients and a narration that keeps one glued throughout, Pizza is entertaining and immensely watchable.