Yatchan (Marionette) - Awry dark comedy with dreary souls!

Director Vishnuvardhan has always come across as a stylish director who could have done much better films than what he has made till now. All his movies would have been crafted with style and elan with top notch technicalities and best men from the key technical departments doing their honors to craft the director’s vision. But at the end of the day there has to be a vision for the director in order to allow others to translate the same into a well-crafted film that makes sense and touches the eager souls who pay to watch the stuff on the big screen. That is in essence the key ingredient which adds flavour in the whole film making recipe. Vishnuvardhan seems to be faltering in this key role as a visionary with respect to what he is going to deliver at the end of the day. In Yatchan too he has faltered a lot with a good script at hand that was spoilt due to lackluster execution and bad acting.

Karthikeyan (Krishna), an aspiring actor elopes to Chennai with the help of his girlfriend, Deepa (Swati in a bubbly role) and due to some messy circumstantial mishaps, trades places with Chinna (Arya), who is a hired hitman, assigned to kill Swetha (Deepa Sannidhi). Why, how, where and what happened has been narrated with a dubiously knitted narrative that could have been made to notch up several scales higher than what it is now had there been better actors and a crisp screenplay.

Vishnuvardhan has mercilessly ripped of various elements from some of his previous successful releases like Arindhum Ariyamalum and Pattiyal. For e.g. Krishna’s character who aspires to become an actor is pulled out from Arindhum Ariyamalum where Five Star Krishna played a similar role (in fact he did a commendable job in that), who incidentally happens to do a role in this film too. The hitman broker’s role that was done so classily by Hanifa in Pattiyal has been done in a rib tickling way by Thambi-Ramaiah in this one. But as long as it helps the plot points it's fine. The big question was how they were handled? Except Thambi-Ramaiah, others in the party were clueless on what they were upto. RJ Balaji in a typical whacky role was sort of a consolation and he did his bit to make things better at times. Krishna was sadly left to make a hue and cry about his acting capabilities but he just doesn’t have that charisma or a sort of whackiness that was needed for his character to pull things off. Arya hasn’t brought anything special to the table this time too. He was portrayed in yet another sordid role that had him vouch for the masses as a ‘thala fan’. Off the two heroines, Deepa Sannidhi seemed to have some meat in her role as her character was endowed with a special something…. but that’s about it, there was nothing really special in her performance.

There was a kuthu number with the 4 leading actors like the ‘Kaatula’ number from Pattiyal, another ripped off strand. Other songs were just there to hamper things and Yuvan’s BGM was forgettable. Cinematography was pleasing to the eyes with visuals and angles captured with taste.

Thanks to the efforts of the writer duo Subha, the movie managed to set itself for a rioting black comedy, but for that to happen there should have been some good direction and obviously some good actors (or acting) as well. Sadly it fell flat with all style and no substance.

Verdict: Below Average

Rating: 2 / 5