Prabhudheva gives his ghoulish character a life of its own. Sometimes the message is not enough. Not when you have to wade through acres of lush - in this film, quite literally - to get to the point.
Mercury has a message about ecological devastation and chemical plunder. To drive in the point the director, wearing his commitment on his sleeve like a renegade revolutionary rapidly running out of tricks, flashes statistics of chemical carnage across the globe during the end-titles.
The film is as unconvincing as the mighty Prabhudheva going through a role that requires no dancing.
In the elaborately-staged scenes where the blind nameless ghoul follows sound signals to track down his victims in a dilapidated ramshackle chemical factory reeking of death and plunder, Prabhudheva uses the dancer's body language as an action machine to show his characters sniffing out his prey.
The chases in the environmentally challenged setting are interestingly staged, parts of it being heart-in-the-mouth, thanks to the cinematography and artwork which aid the ambiance of shivery shindigs.
Prabhudheva gives his ghoulish character a life of its own. He fills the air with anguished shrieks that sends a chill up our spine. As long as he is on the 'scream' we are game.
He deserves a lot better than this phoney salespitch at promoting cheap seat-jolting horror in the guise of a social message. The story of four young men and one young woman who are hounded by a zinced-out zombie who tracks them down with the help of sound is clearly inspired by Fede Alvarez's 2016 horror-thriller "Don't Breathe".
Mercury doesn't allow you to breathe either. It suffocates you with the over-elaborate background score and amateur actors who gesticulate like circus artistes in lieu of genuine sign language.
Malayali lass Ramya Nambeesan too essays a prominent role in the movie directed by young film-maker Karthik Subbaraj. Mercury hardly has any dialogues but is expected to give the audience some genuine scare.
Prabhudeva, who was recently in Kerala as part of a promotional tour of Mercury, said that the movie would satisfy all kinds of audience.
The film is about the reunion of five school mates and the unexpected events that follow the reunion. Thirunavukarasu Sabapathy has brilliantly handled the cinematography of Mercury.
