Certificate: U

Director: Karthik Subbaraj

Starring: Prabhudeva, Sananth Reddy, Deepak Paramesh, Indhuja, Shashank Purushotham, Anish Padmanabhan and Gajaraj

Screenplay: Karthik Subbraj

Jayantilal Gada and Kaarthekeyen Santhanam’s MERCURY is one of its kind films, it is India’s first silent thriller and the director Karthik Subbaraj has through this film given an ode to silent films from RAJA HARISCHANDRA to PUSHPAK.

The story revolves around five friends who are deaf and mute; the movie opens in a bungalow in a hill station where the youngsters have convened for a reunion. A night time drive turns into tragic incident when they run over a man (Prabhudeva) on an isolated road and their life changes completely after that. What happens next forms the rest of the crux of the film. The film is true to its genre but is enjoyable in parts, the first half is amazing and keeps one engaged but there is the same old seen before story line in the second half, as the action shifts to a mercury plant where a leak had taken place decades ago, causing many deaths and irreparable damage to the region. The best scenes are in this plant where the friends run to save their lives. The actors have nicely portrayed their helplessness in these scenes. Though the end is worth mentioning, it is too melodramatic and by the time one understands why this movie is named Mercury it is too late. The plot is lost in between and it goes haywire. However the director tries to keep one engaged in the film throughout but lacks a punch in between, especially in the second half.

Performance by all the actors is brilliant, especially Prabhudeva who is at his scariest best at times in certain scenes and Sananth Reddy is at his best and is the driving force of the movie. Apart from them all the other actors play their part well. MERCURY with no dialogues and dance numbers still manages to entertain, though the director wants to tell the facts and statistics of people died with mercury explosions till date but the movie for the most of its time revolves around something else.

Technically the film is shot brilliantly, cinematography is mind blowing and editing is also worth mentioning and certain scenes of the film are very good thanks to the camera work. And there are background noises which are present in every other scene.

Director Karthik Subbaraj is able to create a world around his deaf, mute and blind characters but due to poor background score and too melodramatic climax, he tries a lot to impress but is only average in his story telling. MERCURY is a good film which could have been done better and there is no extraordinary plot or performances.


At the box-office,

The film is a dud.

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