Mercury Movie Review And Rating

Director : Karthik Subbaraj
Cast : Prabhu Deva, Deepak Paramesh, Indhuja, Sananth Reddy, Shashank Purushotham, Anish Padmanabhan, Remya Nambeesan.

Prabhudheva’s silent horror film is technically sound but has a flimsy plot
Filmmaker Karthik Subbaraj’s Mercury releases at an unfortunate time. The movie will only be compared to Hollywood film, A Quiet Place, with which it shares plot similarities. The latter has also become critics’ darling over the past one week. Karthik teams up with Prabhudheva for this horror film, which is wrongly being promoted as a ‘thriller.’ The teaser and very recently released trailer of Mercury are impressive and can definitely draw a horror fan to the theatres. But is it worth spending those two hours on? Here is what I think…

A set of five deaf-and mute friends find themselves being picked up and killed one by one a blind-and-mute Prabhudheva over the course of one night. The playground for this massacre is an old warehouse, which has been abandoned for years after a mercury poisoning disaster. Ironically, the characters in the story are all connected to that same tragedy which occurred years ago, in one way or the other. I want to tell you more but it would be spoiling the fun.

I have to give a huge round of applause for the exceptionally brilliant technical department of the film. The five main characters might be deaf, there might be zero dialogues in the film, but the background score has been used to its full potential and how! The movie strikes a perfect balance between the presence of sound and the lack thereof. Pieces of glass crunching under the feet, tyres screeching, speakers blaring out a song, clinking metal pieces, dripping water – the cacophony is in perfect tandem and that, too, induces horror. The movie is high on atmospheric tension and the sound department has a big role to play in it. The background score is exceptionally haunting. Santhosh Narayanan has done an incredible job.

Then there is Tirru’s charismatic camera work. He matches the perfection of the sound design with the finesse of his camera angles. We have seen two of the remarkable shots in the trailer – Prabhudheva walking into a tilted frame and the upside down view of protagonists looking over a hill. But the money shot is the climax. What a brilliant example of badass cinematography! The climactic shot is one of the best we have seen in Indian cinema. And I honestly can watch it a thousand times. If only I could skip the previous parts of the movie. There is also a long single-shot scene that will send a chill down your spine. The camera work is creepy AF.

The five main characters only talk to each other in the sign language and somehow we understand pretty much everything that they are conveying. I don’t know if their sign language is technically correct but the delivery of the message without using words left me impressed. Speaking of the five differently-abled characters, they have been played by five very able actors. Indhuja, the only female actor in the movie, impresses. You can actually feel the helplessness of the characters. Prabhudheva’s scary act also manages to stun.

For all the above-mentioned points, a big chunk of credit goes to director Karthik Subbaraj. He has also written the film and done a good job in the first half. The movie takes its sweet time to develop the plot. In fact, it takes the entire first half to do so. But with characters who don’t utter a single dialogue, it must have been a tedious task. The long first half also helps the viewers understand better how the five deaf characters see the world.

Prabhu Deva, Deepak Paramesh, Indhuja, Sananth Reddy, Shashank Purushotham and Anish Padmanabhan have given good performances. The music by Santhosh Narayanan elevates the film and gives it the total horror flick feeling. National-Award winning cinematographer Tirru must be lauded here as a lot rests on his shoulders where this movie is concerned and he has delivered the goods.

Verdict : Watch the film for feel the good attempt made by director Karthik Subbaraj and the efforts of the cast.

Rating : 3.5 / 5