Director Badri makes it plain from the start of Pattampoochi what to expect. Images of Jai’s serial murderer mercilessly killing his victims while blood splatters on the screen are shown over an overly loud musical piece. The lyrics of the song celebrating this persona make the photos, which are rated A, appear to be torture porn.
The movie opens with Sudhakar, the main character, encountering Vijayalakshmi (Honey Rose), a reporter, as he is in jail waiting to have his death sentence carried out in a few days.
She is the one to whom he admits that, although not being responsible for the murder that landed him in jail, he has committed more than a dozen murders while posing as Pattampoochi, a legendary serial killer whose identity the police had given up trying to track down.
The police chief chooses Kumaran (Sundar C), a police officer who is interested in a desk job, to wrap up the case now that the court has suspended the death
penalty. They are unaware, though, that Sudhakar is attempting to murder individuals close to Kumaran in order to gain his freedom, which will only confuse the case more.
Contrary to its sweet name, Pattampoochi is a bloodthirsty, loud crime thriller that centres on a PTSD-stricken police officer and a smart criminal with a mental illness.
The movie is set in 1989, but other from a few identifiers like movie posters, landlines, news accounts of the historic violence in the state assembly, and shoddy visual effects that reproduce the then-roads Madras’s and landmarks, it plays out more like a modern thriller. This idea is furthered by the characters’ attire, hairdo, and artistic direction all having a distinctly modern feel.
A badly recorded flashback episode featuring child abuse and murder, as well as clumsy attempts at romance, make up the most of the first half. When Navneeth Sundar’s loud score threatens to harm our ears, you start to wonder whether the movie will serve as a case study for how not to construct a psycho-killer movie.
Thankfully, once the story becomes a cat-and-mouse game between Kumaran and Sudhakar, things start to get better. The casting generally works. Given his somewhat innocent appearance, which is useful in sequences where the character pretends to be innocent, Jai seems like an excellent fit to play the maniac. Sundar C is essentially acting casually, as he does in his Aranmanai movies. As we watch his bold actions result in the loss of life, this really helps the movie. Even if her lipsyncing occasionally fails, Honey Rose does a good job at playing the damsel in distress.
As Sudhakar pursues a police officer and his daughter and then Vijayalakshmi and Kumaran’s father, there are a few tense moments. And the movie keeps us interested just by having us question if Kumaran can catch Sudhakar before it’s too late, especially given the clumsy way he approaches the case.
Badri uses the device of a little girl who is frequently thrust into life-threatening situations, often as a result of the irresponsible behaviour of the adults around her, to increase our fear. By having the current events parallel the tragedy of Kumaran’s past, the writer also makes an attempt to provide closure for his PTSD; nevertheless, the execution, like the rest of the movie, is overt.
When Navneeth Sundar’s loud score threatens to harm our ears, you start to wonder whether the movie will serve as a case study for how not to construct a psycho-killer movie.
Cinetimee