How does a filmmaker or artist respond to something of such wide social impact as demonetisation? What is more important, responding quickly or taking your time and making a studied response? Five months after the exercise, Ranjith has brought to the screen a film based on what happened afterwards. If seen as a kind of response to the policy, this is quite a quick one. But for Ranjith, demonetisation is just a starting point.
Puthan Panam comes with the tag, ‘The New Indian Rupee,’ a dual reference there, one to his own 2011 film, and second, to the new currency notes post-demonetisation. While ‘Indian Rupee’ was an intelligent take on the real estate business, the parallel economy, and the greed of those who are caught in it, Puthan Panam turns out to be a lazy attempt at making a film on the post-demonetisation scenario.
An hour before the demonetisation announcement, an ex-Minister hands over ₹25 crore in cash to the agents of Nithyananda Shenoy (Mammootty), a Kasaragod-based don. With useless currency in their hands, Shenoy and gang soon head to Kochi to recover the money. A few mix-ups later, the focus of the film entirely shifts to an abandoned pistol, which is now in the possession of Muthuvel, a schoolboy. Ranjith begins on a promising note, raising hope of a worthy follow-up to Indian Rupee . This whole thread of a huge cash transaction an hour before demonetisation was also pregnant with possibilities. But, even in these interesting phases, the film displays a lack of understanding of the nature of black money. The serpentine queues in front of ATMs and banks post-demonetisation are also conspicuous by their absence.
Clueless journey
All these seem minor niggles, when the story shifts focus to the pistol and the schoolboy. It’s a clueless journey henceforth, as Shenoy and his gang go on a hot pursuit of this schoolboy, for the entire second half of the film. For someone who is said to be having a sway over north Kerala, this does not look believable.
Towards the end, the film also gets caught in the dilemma of giving something to cheer for the star’s fans and staying true to the narrative. Thus, the star arrives in slow motion and delivers flying kicks to random goons who were introduced five minutes ago. The film thus constantly behaves out of character, betraying the filmmaker’s on confusion of where and what to focus on.
The demonetisation track in the end comes out as an excuse to latch on to some current issue, without even managing to get a slice of the icing on top of it. Walking out of the cinema after Puthan Panam almost matches the feeling of first walking out of the ATM with those new pink ₹2,000 currency notes. You really do not know what to make of it.
