Purushu Pretham is a crime-comedy-drama film directed by Krishand and produced by Jomon Jacob, Dijo Augustine, Einstin Zac Paul, Vishnu Rajan, Sajin Raj and Prasanth Alexander and has a runtime of 150 minutes. The movie is based on the original story by Manu Thodupuzha.
The film stars Prasanth Alexander, Darshana Rajendran, Jagadish, Devaki Rajendran, Maala Parvathy, James Elia, Geethi Sangeetha, Shiny Sarah, Jolly Chirayath, Sanju Sivaram, Manoj Kana, Surjith Gopinath, Pramod Veliyanad, Balaji Sharma, Sudha Sumithran, Pooja Mohanraj, Shinz Shan, Rahul Rajagopal and Gopan Mangat.
When a dead body hilariously shows up in the river in a small village, panic ensues at the police station. Between personal and professional problems, Inspector Sebastian, who loses the corpse along the way, must rush to get things in order before the body’s family arrive.
– Purushu Pretham Review Does Not Contain Spoilers –
Purushu Pretham at first gives us a hilarious rundown of what to expect of the cops, and the system in general, who will, shortly, be going on to find a bead body in the river. Finding the bead body is hilarious and not an expected outcome of finding a dead man in the river. From there on out, the movie is a roller coaster ride of the weirdest and wackiest things happening one after another.
It’s a comedy of errors and several other genres working rather well together. Watching these genres come together in itself is amusing, but the way the storyline comes together and the sheer oddity of everything is just so funny and entertaining that you won’t be able o look away.
Apart from the comedy, Purushu Pretham interestingly discusses the stronghold the police have, especially in small towns. They dictate everything around them to the people, who have no other option but to accept their decree. The police showcase themselves to be better than everyone around them – heroic and brave in all aspects of life, although that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Thus, to keep up appearances, they lie to others and create an aura of awe that is mostly, if not all, fake.
There are also the issues surrounding specific jobs being given to specific groups of people and how it gets to break the cycle in such situations. The film showcases these moments deftly and very interestingly gives newspaper clippings and even book clippings (when talking about the various sections of the law etc.) to back up everything that is being said. These moments ground the movie in realism, regardless of how bonkers the movie is in general.
Purushu Pretham is an excellent dark comedy. It showcases the most uncomfortable things in the most deadpan way possible as if there’s nothing wrong with what we are seeing here – all in a day’s work, in fact. The film is enchantingly mesmerising, and its different beats are hard to ignore. And although you’d think ‘pretham’ in the title means literal ghosts, the policemen in Chelanallur call corpses ‘ghosts’. So, no, it’s not about ghosts. Or, well… literal ones, anyway.
Everyone in this dark comedy is on top of their game, with Prasanth Alexander, playing the lead, being the funniest of the lot. The comedy is pretty subtle and sophisticated, and Alexander does a fantastic job with the script he is given. He is so funny that you’d laugh out loud. In the midst of this misplaced body is his rivalry with Darshana Rajendran’s Susanna. The two are constantly at loggerheads from the moment she is introduced, and her acting chops are visible clearly from that moment as well.
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Apart from the dark comedy, Purushu Pretham is also a neat little crime thriller that constantly keeps you at the edge of your seat, wondering what happened to Susanna’s husband’s dead body. Also, is it even her husband? Will she ever know? Where did that body g anyway, and who got a hold of it? Or was it an act of god? The series keeps these questions hanging while trying to unravel the mystery of the missing dead body slowly.
Summing Up: Purushu Pretham
Purushu Pretham is a hilarious film that brings forth that feeling of when nothing in life goes right. There are several themes and genres in the movie that it expertly showcases, and is a laughing riot from start to end.
Purushu Pretham is streaming on SonyLIV.
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