Well, what do you say of a film that is so steeped in the past, it's no longer funny. Combine that with many borrowed ‘influences' such as a car that changes Transformers style and the floating seeds of Avatar 's magic tree, and you'll get the drift.
Thenandal Films' ' Kutti Pisasu' starts off with ‘Amman' specialist Ramya Krishnan reprising the role of yet another village protector, this time as Kenathadi Kali. Once her prowess is established through two sequences, including one where screen scorcher Nasser is reduced to a pale shadow of himself, it's time to move on to 200 years later.
Priya (Keethika), a precocious child, the daughter of Ramjhi and Sangeetha, gyrates to adult steps and draws like a dream, coming up with a visual of an ancient yellow car. Soon, she is possessed by the spirit of a girl called Savithri (a terribly out-of-sorts-and-shape Kaveri — whatever happened to the cute actor?).
Cut to flashback mode, and the stories of Savithri, her brother, Karuppu (Ganja Karuppu) and their adored yellow car (washed only with warm water, mind you!). Savithri is cheated by her fiancé Nanjappan (Riyaz Khan), and given as sacrifice by his sorcerer friend Mandiramoorthy. Her brother also dies in the process of saving her. His spirit is locked in the yellow car, till Kenathadi Kali frees him to avenge his sister's death. Two of Nanjappan's friends are killed by the possessed child — one in the harbour and another in the circus ring — and, he's next in line. Enter a miniature villian (Mandiramoorthy's guru) mouthing “Jakkamma” ever so often, and the stage is set for a lopsided fight, not-so special effects and all.
Finally, evil is vanquished, but not before you are forced to sit through some more songs where your heart bleeds for the child artiste, who seems to have little else to do other than look startled, angry and roll her eyes, all this in the midst of bad lip-sync.
Ramjhi and Sangeetha have little to do except perform puja s, make thayir saadham , and cry about their daughter's fate. And, Delhi Ganesh plays the grandfather who loves ftv. Ouch!
There's little to say in terms of story or production value. Strange, considering director Rama. Narayanan is a veteran in children's and godly movies, even if they are terribly over-the-top! As for the music, Deva's brief seems to have been to come up with such high-decibel dabbankuthu that even the Transformers -look-alike dances. He succeeds.
Now, the only question is how this can be called a fun film for the kids to go to this summer! There's gore, the sacrifice scene leaves you retching and the dialogues are written with least sensitivity.
Kutti Pisasu
Genre: Fantasy/Drama
Director: Rama. Narayanan
Cast: Ramjhi, Sangeetha, Ramya Krishnan, Baby Keethika, Delhi Ganesh, Kaveri, Kanja Karuppu and Riyaz Khan
Storyline: The spirits of a dead brother and sister enter a car and a child, respectively, to take revenge on the villains, aided by loads of tacky special effects
Bottomline: Not our idea of summer fun!
