‘Perusu’ movie assessment: ‘Stand-up comedy’ gets a new definition in Vaibhav’s mindless entertainer

A nonetheless from ‘Perusu’ 
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

A little bit of googling tells how terminal erection or demise erection is an precise situation that’s very a lot as surprising because it sounds. It can also be the core concept behind director Ilango Ram’s Perusu, the remake of the director’s Sinhala-language comedy-drama Tentigo, which bagged a number of accolades.

In Perusu, Halasyam, a much-revered aged particular person, dies unexpectedly. But his sons Samikannu (Sunil) and Duraikannu (Vaibhav) barely have the time or house to mourn as their father’s corpse, as a substitute of creating rigor mortis the place the muscle tissue stiffen, gets a rigor erectus, inflicting the useless particular person to have an erection — or priapism because it’s technically known as in which a penis stays erect for hours. As the household — which incorporates the heirs’ wives Shanthi (Niharika) and Nila (Chandini Tamilarasan), Halasyam’s spouse (Nakkalites Dhanam) and her sister (Deepa Shankar) — believes this to be a travesty that the villagers and family can’t get a whiff of, they struggle every part in their energy to um… carry issues beneath management.

This easy however intriguing plot is a good canvas for a slew of jokes and comical moments, and Perusu laps it up brilliantly. The double entendre is expectedly aplenty, and even when the jokes across the useless particular person’s situation overstay their welcome, it’s the hilarious one-liners and Crazy Mohan-style wordplays that save the day. The movie’s title itself goes from that means a head honcho of a city to one thing else as soon as Halasyam dies. From him being a carpenter and innuendoes starting from a cricket bat to TMT bars, the movie goes laborious with its share of d*** jokes. Perusu could be a one-trick pony, however, much like Bruce Lee’s well-known quote, it’s a trick that the movie has perfected, and it really works nearly on a regular basis Perusu banks on it.

Perusu does a respectable job of navigating over a wafer-thin plot, and when the preliminary novelty wears off, we get a slew of secondary characters to carry in extra knots to unravel. There’s the younger chap who Halasyam would have earlier slapped for apparently ogling at girls; there’s additionally Durai’s belief pal Ameen (Bala Saravanan), Sami’s schoolmate and auto driver Sathish (Redin Kingsley), the nosey neighbour (Rama) and the overtly suspicious uncle (Munishkanth). Out of this lot, it’s Bala Saravanan who stands aside in a function nearly as good because the one he lately did in Lubber Pandhu.

Speaking of performances, it’s Vaibhav and Sunil, because the half-drunk youthful brother and not-responsible-by-choice older brother, do a sensible job. After a minor function in Ranam Aram Thavarel, it’s pleasant to look at the real-life brothers carry a movie collectively fully. There’s a fantastic scene in the back of a stationary automotive the place the brothers speak about one another’s dynamic or the shortage thereof they’d with their father. After a minor function in the latest Suzhal 2, it’s good to see Chandini in a pivotal function, and Niharika, although acing the appearing parts, feels misplaced along with her accent. A throwaway line, seemingly as an evidence to that, is clearly an afterthought on the dubbing studio. It’s truly Nakkalites Dhanam and Deepa Shankar who nearly steal the present if not for his or her restricted display time.

A nonetheless from ‘Perusu’ 
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Probably my solely gripe with Perusu is how the movie retains going for — pardon the pun — the low-hanging fruits. The movie prefers hitting you with a sure variety of laugh-worthy moments a minute as a substitute of coupling the humour and drama to present us a simpler finish product. For instance, when a shaman (performed by the movie’s producer Kaarthekeyen Santhanam) and a physician (VTV Ganesh) populate a scene, you’d most likely count on a science vs faith facet of coping with the scenario. But the movie, as soon as once more, opts for one thing slapstick.

What turns into unintentionally humorous is how the makers — most likely due to the censor board — have so as to add a few pixelated frames over the useless physique’s you-know-what every time it comes up on the display. For a movie on such a theme with a small dose of matters like extra-marital affairs and Viagra medicine, Perusu maintains its streak of unpolluted humour all through its runtime. It even makes you marvel if it may be known as a family-friendly movie. Speaking of dilemma, at a time when there’s a slew of movies highlighting how a household’s honour is just not the accountability of its girls or their sexuality, I’m uncertain if Perusu’s central concept of the household going to lengths to cover one thing pure in the identify of saving their integrity warrants a discover. But Ilango Ram, along with his fantastically written screenplay, allows you to go previous these minor flaws and sure flat features of the movie even when the climax stretch, with its comedy of errors and the ‘other woman’ trope, reminds you of Santhanam’s A1.

Perusu, with its easy however efficient premise, is a mindless entertainer that works regardless of sure limitations. At a time when Tamil cinema is interfering extra with motion flicks and thrillers, Perusu has all of it to satiate those that wish to chuckle out loud and lose observe of the variety of instances you probably did it. Speaking of motion movies, if Perusu ever gets made in English, I’m wondering if the title Die Hard could be up for grabs!

Perusu is presently operating in theatres