Pancharaaksharam Movie Review
As the year 2019 comes to an end, the last Friday has some pretty good watchable movies released. While Sillukarupatti has proven to be a decent family entertainer, V1 Murder Case has held some prominence for its treatment of script. Apparently, debut filmmaker Balaji Vairamuthu’s Pancharaaksharam instills a good experience, especially for the lovers of supernatural thrillers.
The film revolves around 5 strangers from different walks of life – a traveler named Dushyanth (Santosh Prathap), a promising writer Sameera (Madhu Shalini), a musician Aidhan (Gokul), a philanthropist Jeevika (Sana Althaf), and devil-may-care Dharma (Ashwin Jerome). All of them bounce upon each other during a party. When Dushyanth reveals about his next destination on his travel calendar, they are also convinced to journey alongside him. Things are picture perfect until these friends start playing a weird game. They have to blindly open a page from mysterious book, where what’s written there instantly becomes a reality. Although, they believe this to be coincidental, things become quite horripilating beyond their control sooner…
The core concept of the film itself needs special mention and Balaji has done it neatly. The way, he has developed the plot and narration by first hour is good. In fact, we are offered the abundance of thrills and mysteries by the first half and even the post-intermission sequences are neatly done. There are few weak moments that arrive late in time, but they get eclipsed by a perfect and convincing ending.
When it comes to performances, Gokul of ‘Chennai 2 Singapore’ fame and Madhu Shalini stand out to be absolute showstoppers. Santhosh does justice to his role and when it come to Sana and Ashwin, they could have delivered yet more performances with finesse.
Technically, the background score by KS Sundaramoorthy is very much appreciable and cinematography in certain places is absolutely excellent.
On the whole, Pancharaaksharam is a movie that fulfils the audiences’ interests to a good extent.