Chaurya Paatam movie review: A zany heist comedy that doesn't fully deliver

New Indian Express

26-04-2025

The reason why heist films are universally loved is we, the audience, are secretly begging to be tricked. We want to be conned by a slick crew, buy their false trails only to go awestruck with a twist we never saw coming.
Chaurya Paatam
by debutant Nikhil Gollamari, is a rural heist comedy wary of its purpose and genre. The film begins on a promising note, set for a breezy con job delivered through zany characters and confident filmmaking. But somewhere along the way, the film stops scheming and starts sulking. The con plateaus, the comedy dries up, and what starts as a raucous ride quietly settles into a lecture.
Vedanth Ram (played by Indhra Ram) is an aspiring filmmaker whose silver-screen dreams are a stretch too far. After a mishap on his film set, he devises a daring scheme — to rob a bank and self-fund his movie. It is a plan with 'cinematic gold' written all over it. He assembles a ragtag crew: a prop explosion expert, an alcoholic daily wage worker, and a comical cinematographer sidekick. They zero in on Dhanapali, the richest village in India in the film's milieu, and disguise themselves as documentary filmmakers with an ulterior motive. True to the genre's essentials, Dhanapali has its share of mystery, and soon, the filmmakers are not the only ones with something to hide.
Director:
Nikhil Gollamari
Cast:
Indhra Ram, Payal Radhakrishna, Rajeev Kanakala, Saleem Pheku
The first half of
Chaurya Paatam
is where the film shines. There's energy, a zany visual tone, and a sense of mischief that keeps things buoyant. Davzand's music is a riot. It's a fusion of Western jazz, Indian folk and genre pastiche that pumps the film with fresh blood, without a dull moment. It's the sort of sonic ingenuity that makes you wish the writing was just as alive. The track
'Aada Pisacham'
comes with an innovative surreal touch.
Indhra Ram delivers a controlled performance, almost too restrained for a film this offbeat, but it eventually grows on you. Saleem Pheku, a walking punchline factory in most of his roles, is cast here but is strangely underutilised. Rajeev Kanakala, Payal Radhakrishna and Anji Valguman do the bare minimum. Karthik Gattamneni who is the cinematographer and the story writer adds lots of energy to his creation.
What holds
Chaurya Paatam
back is the lack of escalation. After the setup, the screenplay loses its nerve. The stakes never grow higher than mildly inconvenient. A few surprise villains prop up, but they are mere cardboard rather than cunning. The film gets tedious when it starts spoon-feeding information. The plot begins to explain itself, the humour flattens, and soon the film veers away from its heist genre roots into a rural thriller template and not a particularly clever one.
The film is also plagued by internal conflict. Great heist films are about witnessing the crew taking every step cautiously to stay away from disaster. Here, Vedanth and his gang at one point react to what happens to them rather than scheming. By the time we reach the climax, the titular
Chauryam
(robbery) has been replaced by
Paatam
(lesson), but the lesson is as lacklustre as it gets. A fascinating setup involves the protagonist, Vedanth, talking to his inner consciousness through a mirror. What starts in meta style eventually becomes dull and non-revelatory. The payoff doesn't satisfy you with as much quirkiness as was initially offered.
And yet, there's enough in the packaging to keep you watching. Nikhil Gollamari directs with flair. He knows his grammar, uses genre tropes playfully and avoids overindulgence. The tone is refreshingly modern, with many references to classics and quick-witted banter sprinkled across the screenplay. The film never takes itself too seriously, which is often the saving grace when the narrative starts sagging.
In the end,
Chaurya Paatam
feels like a clever student who leaves the exam hall without finishing. There are flourishes of brilliance, a stylish flair for visual comedy, and a promising voice behind the camera. But the story never gets the rounded finish of a con film. The film made us believe it had the ropes to make us overlook predictability and the resultant boredom. It partially succeeds. But then, it quietly hands your wallet back, gives you a moral lesson, and walks away.
This will not be a regrettable watch. But the film will leave you thinking that this could have been more exciting. A bit more investment in the smarts could have made
Chaurya Paatam
a much better product than it is now. However, the weak writing in the latter half does not overpower the joys and quirks the film offered initially.