Hello Naan Pei Pesuren (2016)

Hello Naan Pei Pesuren (HNPP) is a ghost movie but director Baskar is more interested in mining laughs than scares, and somehow, this approach actually benefits the film. The fact that HNPP manages to click even though horror comedies have become quite common these days should tell you how effective the comedy is.

Baskar briskly sets things up. Amudhan (Vaibhav), a small-time thief, starts wooing Kavitha (Aishwarya Rajesh), who, not knowing his vocation, offers to help him. They fall in love and Amudhan even manages to impress her brother (VTV Ganesh), who runs a saavu kuthu dance school! Meanwhile, Amudhan takes home a mobile that he finds in an accident spot. It is only during the night he realises that he has brought trouble home — for the accident victim's ghost now resides in the phone. What does she want?

If HNPP succeeds, the credit should mainly go to VTV Ganesh, who is hilarious in his character who is all false bravado. The director also exploits the shiftiness in Vaibhav's appearance to good effect. He also peppers the dialogues with double entendre that are actually fun. A flashback is imaginatively narrated with a song. And Yogi Babu gets a couple of comic scenes (one of which involves him lip-syncing to Aashiqui 2's Tum Hi Ho) in the earlier portions, though his character disappears after a while.

The humour doesn't always work, though. There is an unfunny segment involving Singam Puli, who tries to do a Mottai Rajendran in this scene, which feels like a poor version of the Ghost Gopal Varma track from Darling. The kuthu school portions are quite silly. There is a scrappy feel to the visuals, which is quite a surprise given that the film has been shot by Gopi Amarnath, who also shot the sleek Pizza. Yes, the setting of the film is a lower middle-class neighbourhood, but should the visuals look this flat? The two female leads are also just functional. The reason for the ghost's presence is also flimsy, and almost feels like the director thought of it just because ghosts need a motive. Still, the steady stream of laughs helps us overlook these issues, and keep the film from turning into a bore.