O2 Tamil Movie
Everything in director GS Viknesh's new film, entitled O2, comes with a piece of narrative that kind of works as a subtitle. Take the opening sequence, for instance. Nayanthara's character explains to some science students that a plant species called codariocalyx motorius has a sensory system that allows it to respond to sound. It is a basic piece of information that you can find with a simple search on the internet. Now, why is the botanical reference necessary so early in the film? You will have to wait for a long time to learn that it is there as an explanation for an extraordinary event.
The movie is full of bizarre events from start to finish. Nayanthara's child, played by Rithvik, has a health condition that requires him to be always connected to an oxygen cylinder. The child cannot survive even a few seconds without oxygen. The film explains it right at the start itself. The film slips into survival thriller mode as these two characters enter a bus for a trip that would change the child's life forever. Somewhere along the way, a landslide situation makes the bus submerged in a pile of soil, giving the passengers a matter of hours to survive before a rescue team arrives.
A survival thriller is usually predictable. There is such an element of predictability in every survival film that filmmakers cannot do much to avoid it. Even so, Viknesh's film comes with so many narratives to every subplot that make it hard to stay invested in the goings-on or the characters in the film. Like a GPS navigation system, the writing makes it so obvious which way the plot is heading, and after all the twists and turns, it is easy to understand where it will go.
The makers explain what will happen to people in a congested space without much oxygen to breathe. The greater the number of people in that situation, the lesser will be the amount of oxygen they get to breathe. You might have seen enough survival thrillers to understand the aforementioned - even a small child may know it. The reputation of Nayanthara as an action star does not help either.
The acting for almost all the characters is quite substandard. I know it is impossible to make this kind of a survival thriller without special effects, but the effects in the film are only as good as in trashy movies. A rock or a pile of soil that comes rolling from the mountains is a sequence that gets repeated whenever the makers find it convenient to use to stretch the running time.
Only Nayanthara acts as if she is trapped in a dangerous situation, while Jaffar Idukki does his best with the usual role of a father with a vengeance. Despite some portions of good acting, the preposterous scenario and the trashy special effects take away a lot from their efforts. On top of that, there are mother-son sentiments and an annoying police officer who just wouldn't stop talking about being trapped in a bus. In short, most of the characters in the movie are so busy talking about their ill-fated trip that you wish somebody would do something about it sooner rather than later.
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