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Pakka Commercial Movie Review: This Gopichand-Satyaraj-Maruthi comedy-drama is juiceless
Amid a sea of mundane ideas, Pakka Commercial manages to offer a few good ideas.
Title: Pakka Commercial
Cast: Gopichand and others
Director: Maruthi
Run-Time: 152 Minutes
Rating: 2.5/5
In Shankar's 'Indian' ('Bharateeyudu' in Telugu), the son and father were polar opposites. The idealistic dad-evil son dichotomy was milked to deliver a memorable action drama. 'Pakka Commercial', where the father is sinless and the son celebrates money-grubbing ways as a criminal lawyer, doesn't want to enter the complex zone. It's a simple, mindless Maruthi comedy-drama where you can see the so-called twist coming right at the interval.
Satyaraj of 'Baahubali' fame plays an epitome of virtue. He resigns as a Magistrate when he fails to save a victim of sexual harassment from the evil designs of a bloody entrepreneur Vivek (Rao Ramesh). As fate would have it, his son Lucky (Gopichand) goes on to ally with Vivek to help the latter in multiple ways. Apparently, Vivek wants Lucky to be his legal counsel because he believes Lucky is the wisest lawyer around.
The problem with 'Pakka Commercial' is not that it runs out of its jokes. The problem is that its jokes, while they last, are deeply problematic and unabashedly uncreative. Also, in terms of loudness, this film puts even Anil Ravipudi's 'F3' to shame. After the film is long over, you might remember a couple of 'jokes' that refer to the villain's mistress or some male person's genital. If you have never watched ETV's Jabardasth in life, you might remember a couple of classist and ageist jokes as well.
This is not a coming-of-age story because director Maruthi purportedly believes that such a story would bore the audience. All the focus is on excessive humour and exaggerated reactions by different characters.
It is difficult to remember what Raashii Khanna was up to in the film. Her delusions come somewhat close to Vennela Kishore's 'pan-India junior artist' from the recent 'F3'. Maruthi could have mined her character to create original LOL moments. The humour merely scratches the surface, relying heavily on the slapstick comedy of her sidekicks, played by Saptagiri and Viva Harsha.
The Gopichand-Raashii Khanna scenes only serve the purpose of showing the former's character as someone that itches for romance. 'Andaala Raasi' feels forced due to the unnatural chemistry.
Amid a sea of mundane ideas, 'PC' manages to offer a few good ideas. For the first time, a Telugu cinema protagonist believes in out-of-court settlements because court-driven settlements keep none happy. Someone someday could write a serious-minded story around a protagonist whose pragmatism makes corruption look acceptable because it is functional in a deeply flawed system. The laws, bye-laws and rules are made to fatten the bureaucracy and lawyers. The protagonist here is just a symptom of a pathologically rotten system.
Check out the trailer below:
