After watching 2009 remake of 1981 Palavanacholai by the same name, a piece of advise to all directors wanting to make remakes of earlier Tamil films- Don’t do it!

The all new Palavana Solai directed by S Thayalan, just does not work as the basic concept and script is ancient and irrelevant today. It does not gel with the ideas and aspirations of today’s youths. The film should have come more than 25 years back. Nithin Sathya, Sanjeev, Abhinay, Satyan and Chams are your friendly neighborhood guys. Nitin
is a righteous and honest guy who makes a living the hard way by driving an auto, Sanjeev is a duty conscious person who is bringing up his two sisters single handedly by selling savories and snacks to shops, Abhinay is a good for nothing local Casanova and son of a rich
guy, Satyan is aspiring actor looking for a break in Kollywood and Chams is an associate of a criminal lawyer who treats him like his servant.

Enter Karthika, the bubbly young girl from Madurai, who is always happy and smiling. She bonds with the five and all of them nurse a soft corner for her. Like an angel she brings about a change in their life for the better. The twist in the tale is that she is suffering from a rare heart disease and her days are numbered, but keeps it a secret.

There have been many films with similar story line in the 70’s & 80’s and has worked big time with the audiences of that era who used to love soapy sentimental sob stories. But after satellite television came with weepy serials in mid 90’s such kind of films disappeared.

Now, Thayalan has tried to resurrect the theme once again with a faithful remake of the 1981 film, resulting in the audiences jeering and laughing!

The overdose of steamy sentiments, friendship story, supreme sacrifice and other formula of the 1980’s will not work in today’s dog eats dog life, where people want more realty in fims.

Thayalan and his teams handling of the story and presentation is way off the mark. We will be polite and not compare the acting capabilities of Suhasini and Chandrasekhar with the current set of actors in the 2009 version. On the whole the new Palavanacholai is dreary and boring and makes you feel like trapped in a dessert without any water!