Film: Oozham
Direction: Jeethu Joseph
Starring: Prithviraj, Balachandra Menon, Divya Pillai, Neeraj Madhav
Just about half an hour into Oozham, Jeethu Joseph lays everything on the table — the villains, the incident that would become the reason for revenge and the entire depth and breadth of the arch villain’s dirty businesses. Like the audience, even the protagonist Surya (Prithviraj) views the incident live through the webcam, hence taking away the element of suspense that has marked two of Jeethu’s successful thrillers Memories and Drishyam.
The why, what and who of it all is revealed in a jiffy. Jeethu seems to be telling us — “That’s all there is to it. Now, sit back and wait for how he gives it all back.”
Krishnamurthy (Balachandra Menon), an honest health inspector with an activist bend of mind, rubs a medical giant the wrong way with his inquisitiveness, which proves too costly for his family.
His son Surya (Prithviraj), working in the U.S., heads back home to take revenge. At the core of his revenge is his expertise in controlled explosions.
Unlike in usual thrillers, the tables are turned here early on. We get to see the fear creeping up in the mind of Marcus (Jayaprakash), the powerful head of the medical company, as an unknown entity hits him where it hurts.
The film-maker is visibly revelling in the power that the underdog wields over the powerful adversary.
In the non-linear narrative, the action shifts back and forth between a real-time chase sequence and the events leading up to it.
But, after a point, the chase, which is painstakingly spliced in with matching cuts to the other track, becomes tedious. Wonder how Jeethu landed upon this idea of using a single chase sequence as one of the tracks in a two-track non-linear narrative. If it still holds up somewhat, it has much to do with the relative strength of the parallel track.
With the entire revenge resting on Surya’s expertise in controlled explosions, the novelty wears off after the second hit. Things are livened up in the second half with the arrival of a hired hit-man, Captain (Pasupathy).
The script, which commendably eschews the mandatory romantic track, however, falls apart post-interval. But even then, Jeethu manages to keep the film in the watchable territory.
