Pon Manickavel Movie Review: Prabhudeva can do only so much to save a cliched cop film

Director AC Mugil Chellappan's Pon Manickavel is full of age-old ideas, which are conveniently placed. Every scene screams cliché.

Prabhudeva is extremely underused as an actor. In fact, calling him an underrated actor has become a cliché now. None of the films that he took up in recent times explored his full potential as an actor. When he signed Pon Manickavel (well before the Covid-19 pandemic), it brought smiles to the faces of his fans. After several years and multiple delays, Pon Manickavel was finally released on Disney+Hotstar.

But, it is full of clichés. Pon Manickavel is a potpourri of all cop films. So much so that, as an audience, we would know more about the cop procedures than the cops in the film. Director AC Mugil Chellappan's Pon Manickavel begins with the murder of a lawyer. This sends the police to bring Pon Manickavel (Prabhudeva) out of retirement to nab the culprit. You know, the only-man-who-can-solve-this-case trope.