Seena Thaana 001, a logic-defying, light-hearted comedy starring Prasanna, Sheila and Vadivelu is the remake of the successful Malayalam movie CID Moosa. The story, which is all of four sentences long, is a about a self-appointed private detective who, with the help of luck rather than hard work, saves the life of the Governor from only mildly fearsome, but extremely foolish and ineffective terrorists.

Such a story works in Malayalam because the writer packs his screenplay with clever lines that make audiences giggle. Films like this, for good or bad, are made with unerring frequency in Kerala [Images] and those audiences know exactly what to expect from them.

In adapting this story, director T P Gajendran, who also wrote the dialogue, fails to deliver on the gag-a-minute promise that audiences here have come to expect of full-length comedies.

With a plot that has more holes than Swiss cheese, it was essential for the scenes to be funny. When a good many of them fail, the movie becomes as good as last Christmas's turkey. Even Vadivelu, with his considerable flair for comedy, fails in this film because the scenes, which are not written with him in mind, don't fit his particular brand of humour.

The plot angle of the terrorists thirsting for the blood of the Governor, played with uncharacteristic stiffness by Visu, comes across as tested and tired. Neither are the terrorists truly threatening nor do they appear to mock real-life ones.

Gajendran plays a guffawing mad man who appears on screen every time the terrorists try to do away with the governor. This cameo doesn't click. One is not sure why it was written in the first place.

Why Prasanna, who comes on the back of two successful films, Azhagiye Theeye and Kanda Naal Mudhal, chose to do this film is a mystery. However, it's he alone who provides some relief pulling off even the mildly funny scenes effortlessly.

Some parts of the movie, rather depressingly, has a 1980s feel to it. It's as if the filmmakers were caught in a time warp and never managed to enter the new millennium.

Music by Deva is atrocious, the camera work never rises above the pedestrian and the costumes and sets are tasteless. More flamboyantly silly looking costumes, for example would have made the scenes funnier.

Let's pray for the producers' sake that this movie is seen with a forgiving heart by its audiences and is saved from what seems to be certain slaughter at the box office

Rediff Rating: