Pretham

When you look at the extent to which mentalism gets used in the movie Pretham, there will be this obvious questions of practicality as the movie utilizes it in very crucial areas. Apart from that factor, the latest Ranjith Sankar movie Pretham is an interesting watch. With humour enriched in almost every scene, Ranjith Sankar makes the movie away from the typical dark zone and thus Pretham has the advantage of not being a gloomy ghost movie.

The plot revolves around three friends who started a seaside resort by investing whatever each had in hand. Things were going somewhat okay for them until one of them noticed certain supernatural activities inside the resort. The movie deals with that phase of their life where they are trying to figure out a solution for this and they happen to meet a mentalist named John Don Bosco. How John deals with this situation is what the movie narrating.

In my opinion, after Punyalan Agarbathies, Pretham is one movie where Ranjith Sankar included humor very smartly. It never becomes itchy and it never spoils the feel the movie is creating. There is a relatively dark phase in the second half of the movie (an unavoidable segment of every ghost film) and we could see the director adding minimal wits here and there to keep us occupied. To an extent this less stirred comedy in the writing (or improvised) helps Pretham as it falls in a genre where experiments aren’t done much.

Coming to the performances, Jayasurya in his peculiar look is a convincing mentalist. The grace you expect in a person of that charisma was there in his performance. Aju Varghese shows a slight hiccup in that initial part where he tries to speak those lengthy English dialogues, but after that the actor scores with his comedy timing. Sharafudheen is the one who is keeping the movie alive in my opinion. Many of his counters and mumblings (may be added during dubbing) creates laughter among the viewers and the guy has this quality of not being dramatic actor. For the first time I actually liked Govind Padmasurya and Pearly Maney on screen. Dharmajan was terrific. Hareesh Perady was nice.

Like I said, it’s the effective usage of humor that helps the movie here. Ranjith Sankar has maintained a bright outlook for the movie and the color tone sort of sets the correct nature of the movie. It’s partially dark but has witty elements. The movie loses its grip and the peculiar nature it had somewhere in the second half. But we have to remember that it’s ultimately a ghost movie. Some of John Don Bosco’s investigation tactics reminded me of Dr. Sunny and may be because of such references audiences would find, we can see the characters in the movie talking about all those references. The unavoidable signature social commitment factor from director comes out in the form of the back story of the ghost. Edits were nice and the cinematography also showed quality.

So to sum it up, Pretham is a convincing entertainer ghost movie. It has humor throughout its narration and also has certain typical elements we see in every ghost movie.

Rating: 3/5