Production: AGS Entertainment
Direction: Siddarth
Star-casts: Siddarth, Piaa Bajpai, Vivek, Jaya Prakash, John Vijay, Pradeep Rawat, Shamsundar Arsani and others
Music: Devan Ekambaram
Higher hypes and publicities made good waves of expectations prior to release. Designer Siddarth’s debut directorial ‘Bale Pandiya’ boasts of a blend of new thread of storyline set backdrops of usual plot of goodie-baddie conflict.
Siddarth’s treatment of script is quite enjoyable as he brings the film with right mix of action and comedy.
The story of Bale Pandiya goes this way…
Pandiya (Vishnu) finds the best contract killer AKP (Amar) and pleads to assassinate him. First shocked with a crazy approach, AKP and his henchmen ask him to pull out reasons for his drastic decisions. Thus starts his flashback of unlucky misadventures from his birth, which even makes these contract killers quite dumbfounded. On the other end, AKP is on his mission of kidnapping Vaishnavi (Piaa), which turns to be a failure as unlucky Pandiya is besides them. Soon after a point, AKP assures Pandiya about fulfilling his needs and assigns him as a human bomber at the venue of All India Police Conference. Indeed, he offers him a debit card with value of Rs.25Lakhs with the expiry date on 10th of next month (Day to end his life).
Pandiya starts enjoying his life as he carelessly swipes his card letting his family cross its hurdles and then comes across Vaishnavi. They fall in love and Pandiya feels like paradise coming down on Earth, but it’s already Date 10.
Filled with hopes of canceling the assignment, Pandiya takes Vaishnavi to the house of AKP unaware that he and his henchmen are mysteriously killed.
The first half (80mins) keeps going with jolliness as it just carries the establishment of characters. The title song ‘Bale Pandiya’ itself reveals of the protagonist’s character. Certain sequences like ‘Traffic Signal’, ‘First Love Failure’, and Vivek’s arrival at airport are enjoyable. Piaa Bajpai takes on a good screen presence and her costuming is done well. Vishnu has improvised a lot from his previous and his stunts are really appreciable. But, he could yet more spend more efforts on emoting to best. Amar as AKP picks your interest and flashback involving his help for Vishnu is sure to astonish the audiences. Gibran’s look is quite ludicrous and looks like comedy-villain in Old Tamil films. Vivek’s satirical liners like Rs. 1 for Rice and Rs.2 for using Public Toilet wins him applause and not to miss Englishmen introduced Mobile Phone and Tamilians introduced Missed Call.
Post-intermission, there are some lagging sequences as the story turns to be an usual conflict between two politicians and hero’s run of saving his girl from the clutches of baddies. John Vijay is average and Jayaprakash as grey-shaded politician is good.
Cell phone sequence in ambulance and tracing it faintly reminiscences of Rajnikanth’s blindfolded act in ‘Priya’. The stunt sequence during second half has been choreographed neatly. The film could have been well narrated even with a duration of 2hrs (trimming 10 mins each hour of original duration 140mins).
Devan Ekambaram’s musical score is extraordinary and the songs have been pictured well. Especially the song ‘Sirikiren’ and Kangale Kamalayam’ are visual treats.
‘Bale Pandiya’ offers a decent entertainment for its viewers. Stressed out of heavy work, looking better way to chill, walk in with popcorns, sit back and relax.
What works: Screenplay, entertaining factors, comedy, Music, Camera
What doesn’t work: Few logics missing, lengthy duration but bearable, emotionless romance
