‘PadMan’ Trailer Review: Padded With Feel Good Moments

Akshay Kumar’s ‘PaMan’ is bright, happy and earthy.

“Woman strong, mother strong, sister strong, then country strong!”

Akshay Kumar in and as PadMan

PadMan is essentially Akshay Kumar’s next step in bestowing himself with the title of Mr Bharat. No doubt, the attempt to retell of the story of Arunachalam Muruganantham - the maverick who thought up and executed the brilliant idea of manufacturing low-cost sanitary pads for poor women, is a noble one, and as the trailer of the film shows - this Akshay-starrer is clearly pitched for mass consumption. Everything is bright, sparkly and yet earthy.

The trailer begins by putting Arunachalam right up there with the likes of Superman, Batman and Spiderman - in Bachchan’s voice no less.

So we’re introduced to the genius of Akshay’s character who’s a wiz of sorts at churning out useful gadgets out of ordinary stuff.

See that kitschy onion-cutter he created so that his wife doesn’t have to get teary eyed while chopping them for their next meal? Sweeeet!

So, the first half of the PadMan trailer is mostly about Akshay’s character (we know he won’t be called Arunachalam Murugananatham, since it’s north India based) having these feel goody-goody moments with his family, intercut with him trying to make a functional sanitary pad.

Enter the conflict - if you’ve read about Arunachalam’s life, you would know what’s coming next. Akshay’s sister, wife and the entire village is shocked and surprised at his strange extra-curricular activity (of making sanitary pads), and sort of boycott the “weirdo”.

Cue for Supergirl to make her entry. Sonam Kapoor, who looks like she’s just landed from jhola-land JNU (almost the same Raanjhanaa look) becomes the source of Akshay’s eventual success. PadMan’s cottage industry of producing low-cost sanitary pads gets into motion and all’s well that ends well.

The PadMan trailer aims to please - trying to make the story of a rural south Indian entrepreneur who was crazy enough to bring a revolution of sorts palatable for a pan Indian audience, they could’ve done something different than get the now fatigue-ridden Mika Singh to do the Superhero song.

Akshay’s presence along with Sonam Kapoor and Radhika Apte will definitely get an initial audience into theatres, so IF the film does hit the spot - Twinkle Khanna has a winner in her hands as a first time producer.

But that is a big IF, since R Balakrishnan is the director on this one. Balki has an unenviable track record of working on great one-line ideas and finally producing below average films, with perhaps the exception of Paa. Here’s the list:

• Cheeni Kum
• Shamitabh
• Ki and Ka

Here’s hoping that there’s more soul and substance to PadMan than what the trailer promises.