‘Sebastian P.C. 524’ movie review: No emotional connect

A crime comedy of a constable with night blindness suffers from poor narration

We have seen umpteen films on how the physically or mentally challenged lead character surmounts the problem and emerges successful. While the advantage of portraying such roles lies in having the audiences’ sympathy, in a commercial format, the challenge is in making them identify with the character and entertainingly showing heroism. The hero being a good guy doesn’t thrill anymore. In Sebastian, the lead suffers from night blindness which becomes a conflict point.

What piques curiosity is that constable Sebastian — played by Kiran Abbavaram, a rising talent — is on night duty. He and his mother Mary (Rohini) hide his problem from the world. As Sebastian’s father’s last wish was to see his son as a constable, Sebastian cannot afford to lose his job. Pleading with his seniors to be assigned morning shifts in vain, he is transferred constantly. Then the story gets connected to a murder where four characters are involved.

The film opens with a woman, Neelima (Komalee), telling her lover that she is getting married. Unable to digest being ditched, the young man plans to kill her. Meanwhile, when Neelima’s husband (Adarsh) is out of town, her father-in-law (Surya) tries to seduce her. Also, a young woman Heli (Nuveksha) wants to kill Neelima because she wants to reunite with her boyfriend who is now Neelima’s husband. Neelima is finally dead but who killed her?

Sebastian is on the job and Mary pushes him to do the unthinkable. What is the reason behind the woman’s death and how does Sebastian come out of a role conflict, to be true to his duty or save his one-time saviour is the story. 

The director fails to use the condition of night blindness to his advantage; he neither elicits laughs nor creates melodrama. Had the screenplay been racy, the film would have at least been mediocre. Some scenes where thieves break-in at night and Sebastian is on duty appear cliched. He is shown using the sound to the maximum and beating them to a pulp but that is where his heroism ends. The finale turns philosophical with the dead mother feeling happy that the son who hid his condition from the world has done justice to his job by finding out who the killer is. Barring one or two actors, performances are pathetic.

The beauty of Madanpalle where the story begins is not exploited in any scene. The slow pace of the film is a major drawback. This crime comedy has neither comedy nor a good crime narration and investigation; we end up getting confused. Kiran Ababvaram’s latest concept is good but most of the scenes lack logic, the direction is amateurish and test our patience.