Penguin movie review | Keerthy Suresh

Note: If you are lazy to read the review, you can click the above video for the review!

Amazon\’s second direct OTT release Eashwar Karthic\’s Penguin has released today and let\’s see how the supposedly interesting thriller based on tease & trailer turns out. 

Penguin is about Rythm (Keerthy Suresh and yes, it\’s her name in the movie), a pregnant mother who has lost her firstborn son 6 years ago, and her quest to find what happened to her son amidst her nightmares of a Charlie Chaplin masked umbrella man. 

The movie initially seems to have everything right, a hauntingly beautiful hilly terrain, SaNa\’s music, a nightmare, and the possibility of a serial killer on the roads. But, the screenplay lets you down as time passes by and the screenplay has very less twists and turns than the Kodaikanal hill road the movie was shot in. Also, even the supposed-to-be twists are actually a big let down and takes the movie-watching experience to even lower levels. 

Casting wise Keerthy Suresh gives out the best performance as usual but still can\’t help the movie to win our hearts. Linga who played Raghu, Rhythm\’s first husband, and Master Advaith who played as Ajay, did their best and their performances were worth watching. The rest of the cast fails to impress and even, takes the movie down at times.

Technically, Karthick\’s cinematography was top notch and the beauty of Kodaikanal was captured right but, Penguin  (or it\’s buggy screenplay) couldn\’t pull the best out of Santhosh Narayanan. Editing by Anil Krish looks chopped at times along with poor dubbing at few places and one could even suspect the movie may not have properly completed owing to lockdown constraints. 

Overall, Penguin is one another big letdown for amazon despite providing some solid original web series like Family man and Paatal Lok in recent times. 

So, Penguin strives hard to be a solid thriller but, despite looking like one, it isn\’t.