Poor screenplay prevents Tamil remake of a hit thriller from reaching its potential
THE 2011 South Korean thriller Blind has been remade in Chinese as The Witness (2015) and in Japan as Mienai Mokugekisha (2019).
There is a Bollywood adaptation on the way with Sonam Kapoor in the lead role, but before that this Tamil remake Netrikann premiered on streaming site Hotstar recently.
CBI officer Durga loses her eyesight in an accident, which ends her career, but not her will to live.
Netrikann;
One day she narrowly avoids the clutches of a vicious psychopath and is potentially the only witness to catching the criminal. Police are not much help, and she soon finds herself the target of the sadistic serial killer. What follows is a deadly game of cat and mouse between two opposing individuals.
Those who have seen the originally movie Netrikann is based on will be left massively disappointed because the adaptation waters down the story and takes out most of the thrilling elements. What remains is a dark drama that never quite reaches its undeniable potential and that is largely due to the poor screenplay.
There are some strong characters, powerful performances from the lead cast and sharp camerawork, but that is balanced out by illogical moments that don’t make sense and take away believability from the story.
This also makes the movie predictable and removes any sense of surprise in the story. Instead of picking pace as a good thriller should, it gradually loses momentum as the movie progresses.
Those who haven’t seen the original and are fans of Tamil cinema will take away most from this average effort, which could have been shorter.
Hopefully the forthcoming Bollywood adaptation can learn lessons from this effort and offer a better adaptation. Watch this film with lowered expectations or better still watch the original version Blind.
Movie: Starring: Nayanthara, Ajmal Ameer, Manikandan R Achari, Sharan Shakti Director: Milind Rau