Pichaikkaran 2 movie review: Vijay Antony fails to pull off a silly and dated Shankar film

Pichaikkaran 2 is poverty porn and there are no two ways about it. The directorial debut of Vijay Antony echoes some generic ideas like ‘all filthy rich are evil and all the poor are good’. It doesn’t bother about the nuances of things and sees things in black and white because it suits its narrative. There’s no denying that the game of life is rigged and the adage ‘rich get richer and poor get poorer’, though a cliché, is true. The intention of making a film about the devastating state of the marginalised and poor is noble, but the problem with Pichaikkaran 2 is that even the film seems to be exploiting the topic of poverty to sell a ‘mass hero’. There’s little different between the makers of the film and the croony capitalists they criticise in it. Both in a way take advantage of the sad state of affairs.

On top of that, the film is silly even in terms of the story. Dual-role films are, though absurd, a trademark of Indian cinema and filmmakers never really had to explain themselves while using this silly gimmick while writing a story. Maybe, Pichaikkaran 2 should have taken the same route. In an attempt to avoid the puerility, the screenplay resorts to an equally silly sci-fi gimmick involving brain transplantation. The evil friends of Vijay Gurumoorthy (Vijay Antony), the son of the seventh wealthiest man in India, plan to replace the brain of their filthy-rich friend with that of someone who would obey them. They end up choosing Sathya (Vijay Antony). The funny part is that Sathya also looks like Vijay except for a bigger nose. Guess, a nose job would have done the job for the villains. But the dimwits end up spending hundreds of crores for the brain exchange mela.

Also, the baddies spend crores on the surgery but fail to spend some thousands on a background check on Sathya. Instead of a puppet ruler, they end up with a murderer, who was just an erstwhile beggar. The backstory shows us Sathya and his sister Rani, who end up as beggars after the death of their parents. They get trapped by a human trafficking racket. Long story short, Sathya and Rani gets separated. So, the brother has been on a mission to find his little sister before the villains came for his brain. The beggar now becomes the seventh wealthiest man in the country and starts spending all the money on the poor which earns him more villains. There’s a courtroom drama, people’s surprise for the hero, and all such outdated ideas that are seen in Shankar and AR Murugadoss’ films.

What made the first part of Pichaikkaran work is its simple premise of a millionaire turning beggar as part of a Hindu ritual for the recovery of his ill mother. Emotional drama in that film worked brilliantly with director Sasi’s touch. But the emotions in the second part are all plastic. Be it Sathya’s repeated lamentation about his lost sister or his lengthy monologues about the poor and their sufferings, things are pretty melodramatic here. On top of it, there is rape. Like always, it is used to give the hero motivation to do good. We are spared of the graphic visuals, but it nevertheless leaves a bad taste in the mouth. For some time now even Ajith and Vijay have been steering clear of these one-man-saves-all films, and there was a respite from the nonsense. The break is over with Pichaikkaran 2.