Mercury

The title of the movie and the plot is irrelevant. The movie starts with silence and we actually enjoy it. The place where subtitles are shown, we start feeling of watching completely an alienated film.

The story has plot holes in it but the actors save the show. Kudos to Prabhudheva who was the one man of the show. The story is made flexible.

To earn a wider range of audience and to convince the story, all the people in the movie are made deaf and dumb.

Two stars for acting and One star for nail biting scenes. Three stars for music.

Mercury (2018):

With three acclaimed films in his filmography,Karthik Subbaraj became a favorite for movie-buffs all over India.He once again comes up with a film that is not everyday fare. Karthik Subbaraj once again proves he is gutsy and audacious enough to try his hands at a silent film especially to a modern tech-savvy audience who get restless when a scene goes silent.So how is it?

Plot:

The film is set amidst a group of five deaf and dumb friends who accidentally kill a man(Prabhu Deva) during a road journey. Appalled with their ghostly crime, they cremate the body in a nearby forest. But to their bad luck, the dead man comes live and makes their life hell. Well, how does all this happen forms the entire crux of the film.

My Review:

Surprisingly,Mercury is the weakest in the terms of Subbaraj's writing.While his previous films have terrific writing with intense drama,Mercury is just the regular Hollywood plot but this is where Subbaraj showcased all his direction skills.We can see his mark in every scene of the film.

Disability in films is generally an underdog trait. But here, Subbaraj spends a languid opening twenty minutes establishing their chemistry so that it's not sympathy but empathy that will come to define their circumstances. Even their sign language is shown throughout the film without any subtitles.

This film totally belongs to technical departments who gave their 100% output.Santhosh Narayanan's music elevates the intensity of the scenes put on display. The violins used as part of the BGM, in particular, are beautiful and sounds soothing to the ear.National-award winning cinematographer Tirru is one of the silent heroes of the film. The shot-divisions, camera movement, and the lighting not only set the mood but also set the scary mood.

Performances are good.Indhuja is the show stealer of the film.Rest of the cast is good.

So,Mercury is worth watching for Subbaraj's direction and its technical excellence.

My Rating 7/10

I think this is the first Indian film since Pushpak to use no dialogues in it, although here it is because all the major characters are mute and deaf. The sign language was not completely comprehensible for those who doesn't know it without subtitles but relating to the context it was not that hard to follow. The plot is a very simple horror movie setup but the execution is impressive. The cinematography, the steampunk look, use of shadows etc were brilliant. The atmosphere was really perfect and the sound design is also spectacular, especially the blind v deaf scenes. There's lot of inspirations that can be found here but even when there is no dialogues and the whole setting that can give an other worldly feel at the end it shows how much of an Indian film it still is. For some that must have been a negative but it wasn't that bad in my opinion.

MERCURY: I felt the storyline is very vague, too many loose ends as well. Lots of Hows '?' .. The story doesn't keep you engaged, also draggy. Few portions that needs to be highlighted where just passing moments & portions that should've been short, were very long.

I appreciate the intention though, targeting the corporate hassles that affect the environment & ultimately human-lives. But this could've been easily dealt with through a short-film, if it's going to be a feature film, then audience like me, expect little more clarity, logic & story that justifies the 2 hours run-time.

For a silent film, Mercury's soundtrack has enough going on. Unfortunately, that is the only thing going on here as you end up being sermoned by director-writer Karthik Subbaraj about the hazards of mercury poisoning in what feels like a contrived thriller at best. Five youngsters - all both deaf and dumb - are out partying at a farmhouse. It is the adolescent nature in them that drives them to go on a quick outing in the middle of the night. What starts like a merry trip with two of them even introducing their love for each other comes to a screeching halt when they find a dead body (Prabhu Deva). Because none of them can hear, the further proceedings in the film become a bit challenging to follow. With Subbaraj throwing flashbacks at you, there's a constant sense of apprehension in the narrative, which even the smartest viewer will find slightly annoying. The use of ambient score earns brownie points here, but this is no Pushpak Vimana (1987) or Raja Harishchandra (1913) which Mercury boasts of being inspired from. This thriller has been meticulously plotted so as to turn it into a silent film, which is how dictionaries around the world define the term "gimmick", even in cinema parlance. Even as a well-shot thriller, it does suffer from huge plotholes and conceptual issues because at one point you have Deva acting like a victim of mercury poisoning (the main theme) and at other he has shades of paranormal activity. The hybrid may be true but writer Subbaraj hardly hints at their combination, instead always focusing on how the camera captures the actors' emotive faces or forcing the audience stoop at their seats awaiting a jump-scare. Mercury starts off well but quickly goes downhill to become a boring stash of a soundtrack-driven drivel. With unintentional humor scattered all over the place and amateur performances by the lead actors, there is only so much to appreciate in this thriller. Which is not enough to justify a ticket price especially when there are better films out there. TN.