Enai Nokki Paayum Thotta: Gautham Menon serves the same old wine in a new bottle!

Enai Nokki Paayum Thotta: Gautham Menon serves the same old wine in a new bottle!

Of late, Gautham Menon, as a filmmaker, is so self-indulgent that he keeps churning out the same material again and again. The only change here’s the new set of actors and technicians. So there’s always a freshness that they bring with them. In his latest film ‘Enai Nokki Paayum Thotta’ (ENPT), the acclaimed filmmaker extracts the maximum from his team but falters in bringing the best out of him. The film is almost reminiscent of his last one, ‘Accham Yenbathu Madamaiyada’ (AYM), but slightly better in terms of offering the engagement factor.

The boy-meets-girl-falls-in-love, followed by the quintessential songs (every single one is a gem though), the cops, the guns & all that you expect in GVM’s films are all there once again. The screenplay here keeps travelling back and forth and it’s interesting in parts but there’s hardly a moment of ‘what next’. We can easily predict how things will pan out eventually and no amount of zig zag structuring helps after a point. For that you need to have ingenious moments that’ll make you go ‘wow’.

Agree, there’s a lot of imaginative stuff in his song sequences but not where it’s needed. He’s one of those few sensible filmmakers who uses songs as a tool for storytelling and that’s a good thing, but what’s it with this weird obsession for voiceovers. Man, after a certain point it starts getting to the nerves as his protagonist goes on blabbering all these self-boasting bullshit.

Dhanush as the lead has given a fabulous performance and is easily among the biggest assets of the film. Next is Mr X, Darbuka Siva who hits the ball right out of the park in his very first film itself. His songs were the talking point of the film before release and like always GVM has done complete justice with the visuals. The much-talked about ‘Maruvarthai’ comes at a very crucial juncture in the film and the way it has been conceived might raise a few eyebrows but I totally bought it.

Megha Akash was effective as the damsel in distress and with Dhanush, she made a really good pair. M Sasikumar appears in an extended cameo and his character had a lot of build up that I felt a bit more time could have been invested on him. His English sounded really odd though.

So, ‘ENPT’ is not a bad film as such. It’s miles better than that ridiculous last film of GVM. But this is me venting out my frustration in seeing a celebrated filmmaker becoming a victim of his own formula. The man was once known for breaking cliches but over the years he has given birth to his own set of cliches.

Bluntly put, ‘ENPT’ is Gautham Menon’s same old wine in a new bottle. Well, considering the 3 year delay it took to come to out, this actually is wine, but how well has it aged is the question.