Veteran director Priyadarshan has attempted to "Tamilicize" the sleeper hit Malayalam film 'Maheshinte Prathikaram' with Udayanidhi Stalin replacing the formidable Fahadh Fazil as the lead. Whether this non pretentious rural saga would inspire the Tamil audiences remains to be seen.
Selvam (Udayanidhi Stalin) is the owner of a photo studio in a small town where he lives with his widowed father (Director Mahendran) who might be losing his senses due to old age. Selvam is in love with his school sweet heart Valli (Parvathi Nair) a materialistic girl who lives and works in a city. In a random incident the hero's friend played by Karunakaran gets into a street fight and Selvam tries to cool them down when a rowdy Velliappa (Samuthirakani) beats him up very badly leaving him shattered. Selvam vows to never wear his slippers till the day he beats Velliappa and in a coincidence his lover too seems to withdraw from him. Did Selvam fulfill his vow and what happens to his personal life is what 'Nimir' is all about.
Its a real huge challenge to fill into the mighty shoes of Fahadh Fazil and with the right body language and look Udayanidhi tries his best to pull off the near impossible. His best scene is when he realizes his shortcomings as a photographer through the new girl in his life and the works of his father. Director Mahendran has delivered a stellar performance as the slightly unhinged father of Uday and he does it with minimal dialogues. Kudos ! M.S.Bhaskar is in his elements again in a role with equal scope for comedy and emotions and needless to say he excels in both. Watch out for the hilarious scene in which he fakes a heart attack to help Uday meet Parvathi and is subjected to great torture by people who try to "revive" him. The debutante heroine Namitha Pramod appears only after the interval and impresses with a chirpy performance and her kuthu dance to Rajini, Vijay and Ajith numbers will go down well with the younger crowd. Parvathi in a role with multi shades is adequate while Samuthirakani's rowdy act is not as impressive as the sharp dialogues he has written for the film. Karunakaran, Aruldoss and Imman Annachi do their bits to tickle the funny bones in many scenes. All the other actors including the guy who practices kungfu with Uday and the husband of Parvathi's character are noteworthy.
The first half though slow paced moves in an organic fashion and the sequence where Aruldoss gets rattled and sets off a chain reaction of misfortunes to Ganja Karuppu, M.S.Bhaskar, Karunakaran and lands Uday in trouble is well executed. The scenes in which Uday realizes his shortcomings as a photographer and Namitha Pramod trying to get herself on the cover of a magazine are interesting episodes. There are true blue laugh out loud scenes in the film and even minor characters like the diminutive guy who bashes up Samuthirakani's henchmen and Parvathi's husband who finally reveals the reason for his angry advances to Uday, evoke laughter.
The biggest drawback of 'Nimir' is the complete lack of nativity and while the original took time to establish the importance of the hero's slipper, this one fails to do so and the audience end up unable to connect to Selvam's vow not to wear his slippers. The second half meanders without any impetus and the climax confrontation between Samuthirakani and Uday does not have the desired impact.
Darbukka Siva and Ajaneesh Loknath have tuned in similar sounding songs which are pleasant to hear though. Background score by Ronnie Raphael is a big plus for the film. N.K. Ekambaram has used static camera to compliment the story telling and some of his awesome nature shots are more of an ornament than a necessity. Ayappan Nair's editing is smooth while the rest of the technical work is above par. Director Priyadarshan's caliber is evident in the father -son relationship and both the characters arc pertaining to it. There are also mediocre scenes that raise the doubt whether they are from the veteran's hands. On the whole one has to point out that this is definitely not on par with his previous body of work.
Verdict : Go for it to enjoy some clean comedy and a rural story that comes after a long time
