Mercury Movie Review
Review Overview
Performances
Story & Narration
Technical Aspects & Music
A worthy, daring attempt.
Mercury is a nice popcorn thriller that has limited horizons but still ends up doing something differently within.
Cast: Prabhudeva, Sanath, Indhuja, Deepak Paramesh, Anish, Shahshank & others
Cinematography: Tirru
Music: Santhosh Narayanan
Editing: Vivek Harshan
Art Direction: SS Moorthy
Written & Directed by: Karthik Subbaraj
Produced by: Pen Studios & Stone Bench Films
Release Date: 20-04-2018
Run Time: 01:48:00
On an other day, this would have been just another horror film. But when it comes to Karthik Subbaraj, he tries to take a different path. He takes the concept of a town plagued by a man-made disease with deaf, blind and dumb characters, adds a dose of emotions and equals it into a silent film. The formula sounds exciting, the end result is quite satisfying.
Mercury has been made as a minimalistic thriller. Most of the film is set inside a warehouse, with little props and happenings. But the minimalism might just be it’s villain too, as the film seems short of content, even at a runtime of less than 2 hours. The thrills and spills are far apart, with almost nothing in the first half and some respite in the second. The last half an hour is the best part of the film, Karthik unveils his core at the end and the payoff is definitely worthwhile.
Prabhu Deva stands tall in his mute display of action. He’s the red star of the film, taking home a couple of wow moments in his zombie-like performance. In the supporting actors, Sananth stands out while the upcoming Indhuja is a superb talent as well. Karthik gets good things out of his actors, who have no dialogues to by heart but a bucket of facial expressions to work on.
DOP Tirru makes sure that the green tone of the film is never lost, and gives us some real good frames to cast our attention on. Santhosh Narayanan’s score is too distracting, more so because it is a silent film and some actual silence would have helped it further. However, the sound design of the film is spectacular, some brownie points there.
Overall, Mercury is a nice popcorn thriller that has limited horizons but still ends up doing something differently within.
Mercury Movie Review Rating: 3/5
Written By: Siddarth Srinivas
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