Director: Rathna Kumar
Cast: Santhanam, Athulya Chandra, Namita Krishnamurthy
If I’d told you ten years back that you’d be seeing Santhanam one day as a bearded, poker-faced hero wielding a flame thrower against the villain, what would your reaction have been? I imagine you’d have pointed your flame thrower at me for starters! But this is not far off from what transpires in Gulu Gulu.
Gulu Gulu was widely marketed as a road film, and in this regard, it’s also interesting to note how Santhanam has travelled in his career from his comedian side kick days to the present. He has been dabbling with hero roles for a while now. Many of these films didn’t click, but he finally found a breakthrough last year with the fantastic Dikkiloona. This must have given him great confidence and also offered a sense of validation as it has now brought talented directors like Rathna Kumar knocking at his doorstep.
It’s been quite a journey for Rathna Kumar himself, who gave us two memorable films in Meyaadha Maan and Aadai, to only make a sudden shift to screenwriting post that (for Lokesh Kanagaraj in Master and Vikram). It’s great to see Rathna back wielding the megaphone again.
You could class Gulu Gulu as a dark comedy. At the center of it is the protagonist called Google aka Gulu (Santhanam). Gulu was born a Venezuelan(!) in a remote tribe that lived in the Amazon rainforests. Circumstances and a tragedy filled childhood forced him to roam the world in search of survival. In India now, he continues to live a nomadic lifestyle, and performs odd tasks for anyone who reaches out.
Gulu in fact has a peculiar eccentricity. He is addicted to helping others and this often lands him in trouble. One such request comes from a group of friends whose plan to stage a fake kidnap of another friend backfires. In a major mix up, the friend is abducted by a different gang that works for a powerful don (played by Pradeep Rawat of Ghajini fame). Gulu must now find some way to rescue the abducted friend even as the bad guys breathe furiously down his neck.
Gulu Gulu’s plot isn’t very novel. We’ve seen other films in the past employ the kidnap mix up theme to great effect. We know what we’re going to get out of a screwball comedy such as this- eccentric characters, a generous amount of slapstick jokes and a plot that’s usually amplified to achieve an exaggerated effect. You often have to imagine yourself living in the world these characters inhabit to truly enjoy the film. Gulu Gulu does tick many of these boxes.
Right from the histrionics of a PubG addicted villain to an innocuous Tik Tok reel that creates havoc, Gulu Gulu has its share of comic capers. Many of the jokes are genuinely funny and in a real shift from Santhanam’s earlier films, the jokes are more situational than punch lines delivered by Santhanam himself. The climax especially is a hilarious ruckus with a medley of characters coming together to fantastic effect.
Having said this, the film does fall short of being classified as truly complete. It is watchable as it is, but you sense something is amiss. I felt the key aspect that could have been better was the character building. In other similar films such as Doctor or even Soodhu Kavvum, you’d find a lot of depth in the character sketches. This helps the audience to know the characters better and makes them want to root for them (or not). In Gulu Gulu, you struggle to find that real connect with any of the characters, except maybe Gulu. I also felt the film was a tad overlong and a good fifteen minutes could have been cut to make the narrative slicker.
Gulu Gulu does have its high points and is another positive step for Santhanam in his career. I liked the film’s subtle thread around diversity and belonging. It makes a pertinent point about how we always search for and miss our roots when we travel and live in different places in the world. In this context, now that he’s positioned himself as a mainstream hero, I wonder if Santhanam also misses his roots as a comedian.
Overall rating: 3/5
