Pachuvum Athbutha Vilakkum – My Flash Review!

With a title like that, your guess about the genre of the film is most likely that it is a comedy film. Pachuvum Athbutha Vilakkum (PAV) begins like a slice-of-life comedy affair. But along the way, it keeps shifting its genre to being a crime story and a love story and even a social drama while trying to be comical. Directed by Akhil Sathyan, son of the famed Malayalam Director who has a penchant for bringing in slice-of-life stories on the big screen with great success, PAV tries to ape that formula but with mixed results.

The story is about Prashant (Fahadh Faasil in the lead) who is fondly called “Pachu” by his near and dear. He runs a franchise for a popular Ayurveda medical shop in Mumbai and is a happy-go-lucky guy who takes life as it comes. How some sense of purpose is injected into his life and therefore the coming of age of him as a human being is the rest of the story.

The premise of the film is very similar to Fahadh Faasil’s earlier film Nyan Prakashan directed by Sathyan Anthikkad. But there, the comedy through its writing remains consistent throughout the film even when the proceedings get serious. In PAV, comedy is either forgotten for a while or scenes that are supposed to be comical don’t land.

The film opens with the camera capturing the everyday morning routine of a newspaperwalla in suburban Mumbai. But soon, shifts to Kerala and then Goa. Much of the first half is spent on establishing the characters without getting into the premise of the story.  However, this is also a phase in the film that has some really good moments.  Scenes like how the moment Fahadh tries to settle down in his berth on the train, a co-passenger asking for his lower berth and Innocent showing off with his “Hey Siri” commands to the mobile are straight out of real life. But the film gets consumed in these moments for a long while without getting to the point quickly.  At 2 hours and 40 odd minutes, the film is too long with too much time spent on scenes and characters who don’t value add to the screenplay at the end. Since the title is about the magic lamp, we keep searching for the “Genie” till the end. In a very contrived way, the genie does appear very late.

Fahadh Faasil who chooses his films very carefully and makes every appearance count, is the mainstay in the film. But this is a role, he aces without needing to put too much effort. Anjana Jayaprakash who is paired opposite Faasil, easily shifts from being a casual love interest to an emotional person as per the demands of the scene and is a revelation. There are many other big names in the supporting cast like Mukesh, Innocent, Vineeth, Shanthi Krishna, Indrans and so on who don’t get much scope in their roles but for adding screen presence.

Music by Justin Prabhakaran stands out in the film. All the songs that are played as montage numbers are melodious and very soothing to the ears. I must add here that it is only in Malayalam cinema that we still get to hear these melody songs with we were so used to in the 80s and 90s.

The film’s story and premise have a lot of promise. But the execution suffers because of which the film is too long and slacks off in between only for the pace to pick up now and then. In these days of noisy, lewd and violent films, PAV comes across as a feel-good film that can be watched in a relaxed manner. But that alone isn’t enough to make it the great film that it promised to be in the beginning. Pachuvum Athbutha Vilakkum is streaming now on Amazon Prime and is a one-time watch. Just.