Kuthukku Pathu Review: This dark comedy is a passable entertainer

This dark humour-led series that revolves around a bunch of youngsters in Chennai, who create an absurd chaos, manages to evoke laughter, but gets a tad convoluted and exasperating at times. For a maiden venture, it passes muster.

Kuthukku Paththu

Story: A youngster's impulsive proposal to a girl enrages her brother. Soon, it turns into a war of words and leads to a complete mayhem, eventually leading to a murder and a major twist in the tale 

Review: Kuthukku Pathu has all the ingredients of a commercial potboiler.The seven-part web series is packed to the rafters with a love story, abduction scene, bike race, gang war, murder, an MLA and his two wives, a RAW agent et al. And just like the show's tagline, the series is generously filled with punches. And some of them go like this - ``If you want peace, I'll give you chicken piece, if you want war, I will give you world war."  

As the plot gets rolling, there is a hasty proposal to a north Indian girl residing in Chennai, which enrages her brother. The only reason the proposal happens is because the youngster wants to be seen with a fair-complexioned girl! A fight ensues between the friends of both sides.The war of words between the Hindi gang and the Tamil gang escalates and leads them to take major digs at their respective backgrounds.  

As a parallel story, a youngster's girlfriend gives him a new phone, but that gets him involved with a gang that takes pride in calling themselves the Reservoir Dogs. The members of the gang are dim-witted and display erratic behaviour, but are well dressed and constantly spout lines in English, which borders more on the comic side. And wait for it! They have an Illuminati connection, too! 

Soon, we are introduced to Rangabhashyam, a professor proud of his upper caste lineage and constantly flaunts the same, be it refusing to drink tea served by a Muslim or refers to others as Shudras. He eventually becomes the root cause of all the incidents that follow in the series. All hell breaks lose as an MLA dies prompting his second wife to take charge of his politics, but not without setting her own agendas; a bike mechanic who has never pledged to race after the death of his mother in a road accident, takes part in a race, and a timid policeman goes on to commit a murder, much to the shock of his colleagues. The biggest twist in the story is reserved to the end.  

The show marks the directorial debut of Temple Monkeys fame Vijay Varadharaj in a web series and the debutant director unravels the genre of black comedy. The series begins with a caution that it is filled with expletives and one needs to brace themselves for it. And true to the disclaimer, there is an ample amount of profanity, so much so they get vexatious after a certain point of time. 

Though the show starts on a slightly jarring note, it soon picks up steam as the plot gets thicker.The actors in Kuthukku Pathu are all in their element, and quite convincing in their respective characters. But, like they say, too many cooks spoil the curry. Too many characters in the series take some time to register in our minds and some scenes barely manage to evoke laughter. But, it's interesting how the director manages to connect all the storylines towards the end and manages to keep us entertained. The background score by Balamurali Balu complements the scenes, especially the Hindi song and the finale song when the man of the moment makes his big entry and jumps into action.  

Verdict: Kuthukku Pathu works for those who are looking to watch some mindless comedy over the weekend

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