Deiva Machan Movie Review

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Despite all financial struggles actor Vimal continues to swim against the tide, and manage to surface. Deiva Machan is about a doting brother whose only aim is to find a compatible groom for his sister, when he does, fate threatens to disrupt it. Actor Vimal who was last seen in a cameo part in the action-comedy flick DSP is back on screens with his fantasy comedy drama Deiva Machan. Actress Neha Jha has played the female lead role in the flick. Debutant film maker Martyn Nirmal Kumar has penned and directed the entertainer. So, how has the fantasy comedy film Deiva Machan come out? Will it propel actor Vimal to winning path and rejuvenate his career, and be a successful debut for storyteller Martyn Nirmal Kumar? To know that let us get into the movie review. 

The film follows the life of Thabaal Karthi (Vimal), a young man who runs a small electrical store to make ends meet. He leads a simple and content life with his father Paramanandham (Pandiarajan). From time-to-time he has bizarre dreams in which a character named Saattaikaaran (Vela Ramamoorthy) appears on a horse, and predicts the death of people near to him. As forecasted, the people would die. Karthi’s world revolves around his beloved sister Kunguma Thaen (Anitha Sampath), for whom he has been looking for a suitable bridegroom. But for one reason or the other all alliances drift into a dead-end street. Soon she is deemed as an unlucky person in the village. Karthi gets concerned about it, but continues his endeavor. After a long struggle, finally he manages to find a good bridegroom. Unfortunately, shortly after which he has a dream and in it the Saattaikaaran says that his brother-in-law will end up dead. Will the prediction go wrong, and Karthi save his brother-in-law from the jaws of fate, is what makes the rest of the flick.  

Deiva Machan has a paper-thin formulaic plot with a lone interesting idea of ‘a horse man delivering prophecy in dream’ driving it onward. It is a good thing that storyteller Martyn Nirmal Kumar understands this and does not try to pretend otherwise. Rather than forcing the film to punch above its weight, he plays to the strength of the script. He ditches the stereotypical commercial elements like pointless high octane fight sequences, milking emotions with high melodrama, and more notably the namesake romantic angle. When all these adverse factors are out of the picture it naturally diminishes the tedium. Director Martyn Nirmal Kumar with great clarity channels his attention in moving the film with more humor. One that fits the typical rural demeanor. He deploys this strategy to wrap the first half. His writing of comedy is organic and most of the gags play out with the flow until the first half. Off we go in to break with a promising first half, with an expectation of an entertaining second half.  

In the second half, all we get is loads of disappointment. There is a sudden shift in the style of comedy. The movie starts throwing textbook and WhatsApp comedies at us. There seems to be minuscule effort in tailoring comedy. It does not halt to comedy. That sluggishness oozes into every feature of the rest of the film. As if these drawbacks are not enough, captain Martyn Nirmal Kumar sails the ship into a melodramatic wave that sends us up and down offering a patience testing experience. For a film with a slim plotline such as that of Deiva Machan to garner the attention of audience and keep them invested in the proceedings, it needs a pacy screenplay. Deiva Machan has a sedate screenplay that stretches to a point of no return. The film that never bothered about logic from the start suddenly begins to concern itself with it which only raises eyebrows of the audience. Had Martyn Nirmal Kumar stuck to his primary goal of just entertaining the audience, Deiva Machan would have been a much better rural comedy drama. 

Actor Vimal is easily one of the best artists to play a character from a rural set up. He has worked on his mannerism to bring in some freshness to his stereotypical rural guy role. It has paid him off well, and helps to eliminate banality. Actress Neha Jha in a typical Tamil cinema heroine filler role which simply exists to cover the brief romantic column. Sadly, the actress struggles even in the next to nothing part. Actress Anitha Sampath lives up to her role. But occasionally she does overplay her character. Veteran actor Pandiarajan makes his presence felt even in a limited screen time. Actor Aadukalam Naren is as effective as always. Actor Vela Ramamoorthy is a perfect catch to his part. Actors Bala Saravanan, Deepa Sankar, and Thangadurai, are inconsistent in their performance. But provide the much necessary occasional comical relief. Actor Vathsan Veeramani serves the purpose for being on screen. Actor Trichy Meesai Ramesh is functional. The rest of the cast has given what was demanded of them. 

On the technical front, music director Godwin J Kodan’s tracks are uninspiring, and do not linger in our memory for long. Even musician Ajesh’s background score is just blaring. Cinematographer Camil J Alex has done a fine job covering the drama. His frames are rightly stationed to capture the rural milieu. Editor S Elayaraja has put his scissors at the right spots to weed out the flaws in the visuals of his colleague. 

On the whole, story teller Martyn Nirmal Kumar fails to tap into the interesting idea he had fabricated and turns Deiva Machan into a testing experience.