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Based on an inspiring, extremely cinematic basic story from Dr Punathil Kunjabdulla, ‘John Paul VaathilThurakkunnu’ comes up as an attempt that misses the door to appreciation mainly due to its scattered narrative and not so refreshing execution. The movie promises plenty of cinematic chances to glory, most of them missed out to end up as an average film.
The movie has Deepak Parambol as the title character john Paul, a good-hearted country lad, and son of an aged handicapped professor, currently in need of big money to help his only sister Ann(Darshana) pursue the course in medicine. A hardworking man who but keeps everything to himself, John Paul has already agreed himself to be a donor for bone marrow transplantation to help the only child of Dr. Suma to get back into life. When he arrives at Peermade to do the same, his close friend Venkity (Nirmal) aids him to attend a job interview for an assistant to estate owner Manoj Mathen(Sudip Joshy). Manoj is quite an eccentric who still nurses the feeling of loosing out of his MBBS course at a stage of his educational career, which ultimately made him lose his prestige and even his family. During the examination of the application forms he had, Manoj Mathen realises that his broken and astringent life is inextricably linked to John Paul. Now Mathew gets set to make John Paul’s life a real turmoil and to take revenge upon him.Manoj treats John Paul badly and takes him out to deep forest to torment him as never before. As one thing leads to next, the almighty has many more plans that the lead duo hardly realise at that point of their life.
The movie works on the prologue before the actual narrative and the suspense that ensue. With emphasis on human relationships, the movie picks up after a very shaky start and moves on to a fairly better latter half. The non-linear structuring of the narrative help the movie jump over the big flaws in the scripting side. But the attempt to give the realistic tone to the entire narrative faintly works lending it a mood of an amateurish production. The shots in the much-talked about free run sequence choreographed by Tamil masters Anb-Arivu also doesn’t moveup to the expectations. So are the sequences where the jeep gets stuck amidst the forest and Mathen’s plans to chill Johnpaul backfires. All these sequences appear more darker and fail to ignite any interests . Had the direction and technical sides been more precise, the movie could have been another surprise winner of the year in all counts.
In the performance side, Deepak Parambol comes up with an exciting performance announcing that he is here to stay. Though offered with few dialogues, he is very effective, subtle, realistic and lovable, especially in the second half and in the hospital scenes. So is the newcomer Darshana as John Paul’s sister who has a role and scenes(the Jail visit to see her brother) that will stay with the audience. Sruthy Menon as Dr Suma , Vishnu Raghav as John Paul’s friend, and P Balachandran as John Paul’s father excels in their scenes .But the character of Manoj Mathen played by Sudip Joshy just manages to be effective.. And the other newcomers in almost every lesser roles takes off the sheen from the production quality. Had the important characters in the movie handled by more experienced campaigners, the movie experience could have been elevated to a better level.The technical sides of the movie are also average with Ashwin Johnson’s BG scores not constant enough. The three songs of the film are good but some comes up at the wrong moments.
All in all, this ‘John Paul Vaathil Thurakkunnu’ didn’t open the right door. It could have been much better but as of now, will remain as an average entertainer packed with potential elements that could have worked a miracle.
Rating -6/10
