Mercury Pookal

Cast: Srikanth,Meera Jasmine,Delhi Ganesh, Mahadevan, Karunas, S.N.Lakshmi
Language: Tamil
Banner: Sri Nandhi Productions
Director: S.S Stanley
Producer: Aradhana Reddy
Camera: Ramesh Babu
Lyrics: Vijay
Music: Karthik Raja
Year: 2006

Mercury Pookal has been produced under the banner, Sri Nidhi Productions, an offshoot of one of the leading production houses of yesteryears, Vijaya Vahini Studios. Aradhana Reddy, the grand daughter of Nagi Reddy, the doyen of south film industry, has produced the film.

Hero Srikanth inspite of completing a decent number of films is still struggling to make it to the top bracket of heroes. Director S.S.Stanley who has two earlier good films (April Mathathil & Pudukottaiyilirunthu Saravanan) to his credit has attempted to provide an emotional drama of how a young couple with ambitions is united slowly through the irrepressible bondage of love.

Srikanth, is from a middle class family and is doing his MCA final year. He is an outstanding student with high ambitions. He works part time in a courier company and takes care of his expenses. He also yearns for beautiful classy girls. Meera Jasmine is from a rural landlord's family and is doing her B.Com in Trichy. Her pranks and her outgoing personality makes her father Mahadevan fear that she might bring disrepute to the family name and so he decides to give her in marriage to his friend's son, Srikanth.

Both the youngsters try to resist marriage but are compelled to agree in the end. The unwilling couple make an agreement on the first night that they will play according to the elders' tune for a while and once they are capable of taking care of themselves, they can part their own ways. Meera is also admitted to the same college as Srikanth and the turn of events makes Meera realize the importance of a good married life and how she has to make her husband like her. Inspite of her attempts, Srikanth remains elusive and after some frames he also realizes the meaning of a good wedded life. When he is about to expose his love, turn of events separate the couple. But the couple stay determined to unite despite the stubborn stance of both their fathers. After much drama they unite happily.

Srikanth has dished out a good performance with exuberance and youth written all over. Meera Jasmine is as usual matured and naughty. But her introducing scene reminds one of a similar scene from 'Sandakozhi'. It's another day at office for Mahadevan and Delhi Ganesh. Karunas seems a lot more refined and matured. The narration suffers for want of strong emotive scenes and incidents. The screenplay seems very sloppy and fails to make a deep impact on the viewer. The music by Karthikraja also seems very ordinary without much fizz. The camera work by Ramesh Babu and art direction by Amaran are good.

The combination of Srikanth and S.S.Stanley did somewhat better in 'April Mathathil' and the combination of Srikanth and Meera also fared better in 'Jodi'. While Meera has managed to come out unscathed out of this project, Srikanth and Stanley have to work hard in their next projects to make up for this slight pitfall.

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