When the whole story is built on a frail platform, making the audience excited about it becomes challenging. The issue with Charles Enterprises, directed by Subhash Lalitha Subrahmanian, is pretty much the same. He wants to tell a story about a young man who is struggling financially to set up his own endeavor. But the development aspect of that idea into a script is burdened with predictable and sometimes irrelevant sequences.
Ravi Kumaraswamy is our main protagonist. He has this peripheral vision loss medical condition. Ravi lives with his mother, Gomathi, an ardent believer in lord Ganapathi. They have this idol of Ganapathi at their home, which they inherited from their ancestors. In the movie Charles Enterprises, we see the developments in Ravi’s life when he meets a team willing to buy that idol for a significant amount.
Movies become exciting for us when the conflicts are solid and believable. In Charles Enterprises, the only hurdle in front of our struggling hero is to take the idol from a car parked outside his house. And the size of the idol isn’t that big to make it noticeable. But Subhash Lalitha Subrahmanian wants this to be a big task, and he decides to plant various roadblocks like monitoring neighbors, CCTV cameras, etc., to make this look like a challenge for the hero. But sadly, none of it had the conviction to make us feel that it was that bigger a task. There is a sequence towards the end when Kalaiyarasan’s Charles is trying to hide from Urvashi’s Gomathi. The whole wannabe Priyadarshan comedy setup was stretched way too much, and I wondered what’s the big problem even if she saw him.
Balu Varghese, as Ravi, is in his typical style here. The way he portrayed the confusion and lack of confidence of Ravi has a very familiar feel. Urvashi was a convincing choice to play the role of Gomathi as she has that impeccable comedy timing. But in totality, the movie has not really used her effectively. And there were one or two sequences that were comical, but it felt like they added them to make her do comedy. Kalaiyarasan, as the title character Charles had the roughness and compassion to be that character. I really don’t know why Guru Somasundaram was necessary for this movie as the discretely appearing father of Ravi. Abhija Shivakala, Manikandan Achari, Sujith Shanker, etc., are the other significant names in the star cast.
The writing that struggles to develop solid layers around the central concept makes Charles Enterprises look like a dragged comedy. Charles sees Ravi’s father outside the house, the rat, which is considered Ganapathi’s vehicle, is seen around the house, etc., are some of the tracks they tried to explore but abandoned abruptly. And instead of studying tracks that could add strength to the story, Subhash Lalitha Subramanian’s script goes after many confusing comedies, action set pieces, etc. When the movie slips into Charles’ love story, you don’t really feel the necessity to see that aspect of his life as it wasn’t contributing much to the dramas happening in Ravi’s life. The family feud jokes, Ravi’s eye condition sentiments, Ravi losing his job, etc., are all squeezed into the script to make it look eventful. But almost none of them really holds.
The movie aims to become a divine comedy with a happy ending that balances out everything in the climax. But the writing lacks clarity on how it wants to develop the drama and creates a film with a lot of scenes that are inconsequential to the main track. Charles Enterprises is not a movie that will test your patience, but the movie fails to maintain a curiosity to hold your interest.
Charles Enterprises is not a movie that will test your patience, but the movie fails to maintain a curiosity to hold your interest.
Signal
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended