Pravinkoodu Shappu Review: Funny Suspense

Pravinkoodu Shappuis a quirky whodunnit with its fair share of laughs, observes Arjun Menon.

The Agatha Christie who dunnit template offers a goldmine of opportunities for storytellers, and Pravinkoodu Shappu is the latest addition.

We have seen the uber rich be made the subjects of ensemble whodunits, and we have also seen films where the accumulated sense of mistrust and secrets within a tiny subset being put to test by an all knowing investigator.

Recently in Malayalam cinema, the Mohanlal starrer Twelfth Man (2022) told the story of a group of friends, whose easygoing getaway turns into a trainwreck of a night filled with embarrassing revelations.

Pravinkoodu Shappu inverts the gaze, as the mystery plays out between the disenfranchised demographic in terms of onscreen representation in this particular sub genre: The blue collar, daily wage worker. This, coupled with the dramatic editing, gives it a refreshing flavour.

The film starts off on a promising note, showing us the death of a toddy bar owner. All the customers visiting the bar on that faithful night become suspects.

Their backstories are slowly divulged, including past feuds with the victim, and it immediately makes us learn in.

The Edgar Wright-ishque pop music editing rhythms work through various facets of the tensions boling underneath the seemingly cozy group of men, who all harbour resentments and half truths of their own.

The slightly caricaturish 'Sherlock Holmes' cop Santhosh (Basil Joseph) is put in charge of the comically absurd investigation.

The film takes its time in setting up Soubin Shahir as the focal point of the investigation and we get some good laughs, as the two actors banter on screen.

The police officer with a long held trauma taking up a case as his final chance at redemption checkbox is ticked off early on.

Pravinkoodu Shappu is a fun hang when it leans into the absurdity of the character types and when it refrains from taking itself too seriously.

Midway, the film ditches the Agatha Christie approach to become a template cat and mouse game, with the occasional laughs thrown in by the supporting cast.

Basil Joseph does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to the comic relief digressions in the latter half.

The film dismantled all the goodwill it has built in the former half with randomly thrown in scenes and interactions that are quirky by design but belong in an entirely different film from the one we have been thought to watch till then.

Debutant Sreeraj Sreenivasan keeps things interesting with the occasional detours to the world of magic and fantastical.

In an early scene, you see a 180 degree camera movement that makes use of the foreground and middle ground with marvelous visual detail, involving two objects being passed on frame. The properties and characters on screen are orchestrated with a clear cut precision in some early sequences and you can see the polished eccentricity working its charm.

But the end revel is too stretched and feels unearned.

Pravinkoodu Shappu is too sloppy and self congratulatory with jerks and banal scene-setting that comes back to mean something else later.

It's like the germ of a great idea is there somewhere but the unwarranted need to dilute the fun with an underdeveloped political subtext unsettles the film's tone.

Shyju Khalid's glowing, effervescent frames nicely compliment the 'chip on the shoulders' approach of the film.

Soubin Shahir is well cast here and carries the insecurities and vulnerability of a physically-deformed man put through the wringer.

Basil generates a few laughs.

But the real surprise is Chandini Sreedharan. She effortlessly switches sides, plays up the comedy and looks vibrant on screen.

This Anwar Rasheed produced crime drama is an interesting exercise in suspense that ultimately breaks under its own pressure.