Pizza (2012 film)

Pizza
File:Pizza(2012) Poster.jpg First look poster
Directed by	Karthik Subbaraj
Screenplay by	Karthik Subbaraj
Story by	Karthik Subbaraj
Produced by	C. V. Kumar
Starring	Vijay Sethupathi Ramya Nambeesan
Cinematography	Gopi Amarnath
Edited by	Leo John Paul
Music by	Santhosh Narayanan
Production company	Thirukumaran Entertainment
Release date	19 October 2012 (2012-10-19)
Running time	127 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil
Budget	₹ 1.5 crores
Box office	8 crores

Pizza (Template:Lang-ta) is a 2012 Indian Tamil Horror-thriller film written and directed by debutant Karthik Subbaraj. It stars Vijay Sethupathi alongside Remya Nambeesan, while Aadukalam Naren, Jayakumar, Pooja and Simha played supporting roles. The story is about how around a pizza delivery boy lands in a mysterious circumstance and how it works a dramatic change in his life. The film, produced by C. V. Kumar and featuring music by Santhosh Narayanan, was the first Tamil film to feature 7.1 surround sound. The film released on 19 October 2012, to very positive reviews, going on to become a critical and commercial success and has won lot of critical acclaim as well.

Plot

Michael Karthikeyan (Vijay Sethupathi) is a pizza delivery boy who lives with his girlfriend Anu (Ramya Nambeesan). She is an aspiring novelist who is writing a horror story and is researching for the same, whereas Michael does not believe in supernatural powers,and is afraid of anything supernatural. Anu keeps telling him that he would soon realize the presence of supernatural beings. At first, Michael is confused and scared, and his fears are confirmed when he comes to know his boss, i.e., the Pizza restaurant owner Shanmugam's (Naren) daughter is possessed by a spirit. One particular day, Michael goes out to deliver a pizza to a customer and returns back to the restaurant in a state of shock. When his boss questions him, Michael explains that he had been to deliver pizza to a customer named Smitha (Pooja) in a bungalow, and Smitha got murdered suspiciously. Further, Michael had been locked inside the house by the "spirit". When the murdered woman’s husband Bobby (Simha) arrived, he was also killed by the ‘spirit’. When a couple of policemen arrive at the bungalow, Michael believes that Anu had requested them to help him, but they reveal that four people had been killed in that house - Smitha, Bobby, their young daughter and Michael's partner Anu. Also, Michael says to have encountered the spirit of a child living their by the name of Nithya, which is the name of the spirit allegedly possessing Shanmugam's Daughter. When the police disclose that Michael is a suspect on their arrival and attempt to arrest him, they are dragged into the house and killed, and Michael runs back to the restaurant. While Michael is not convinced that Anu is dead, his friends at the restaurant and Shanmugam start realizing that they had never seen Anu; they also observe that Michael's home does not have any evidence that he lived with Anu. Further, it is also revealed that the haunted bungalow had witnessed the untimely deaths of a married couple, their daughter, and two policeman, whose ghosts Michael had earlier interacted with. This leads to the obvious questions: Is Anu Real? Was she a ghost or simply an imagination of Michael? Meanwhile, Michael continues his search for Anu, has constant health issues, and seems to be disturbed by ghosts and supernatural entities. The true story of what happened is disclosed towards the end of the film - The Income tax department had planned on a raid at the restaurant owner Shanmugam's house. Shanmugam who has diamonds worth 2 Crores hidden in his restaurant hides it in a box of candies and asks Michael to deliver it to his house. But Michael is involved in a bike accident and come in contact with the hidden diamonds. Michael and Anu decide that this is a timely help they would need to improve their life style and support their baby. It is revealed that the whole story was a clever ruse played by the duo. Towards the end, Michael goes to deliver a pizza to a house and the sequence of events that is occurring have a peculiar relation to the story he narrated - involving the little girl Nithya just as he pictured while telling the story. It is revealed that Michael finally does encounter a supernatural event and the rest is left to the imagination of the observer ending with a eerie smile.

Cast

• Vijay Sethupathi as Micheal Karthikeyan
• Remya Nambeesan as Anu
• Naren as Shanmugam
• Karuna as Raghavan
• Jayakumar as Srinath
• Simha as Bobby
• Pooja as Smitha
• Veera Santhanam

Soundtrack

Untitled

Track listing

No.	Title	Lyrics	Singer(s)	Length
1.	"Mogathirai"	Kabilan	Pradeep
2.	"Rathiri (Decent Version)"	Arun Raja	Haricharan
3.	"Engo Odugindrai"	Arun Raja	Alphons Joseph, Darshana KT
4.	"Pizza Theme"		Brinda
5.	"Rathiri (Arath Version)"	Arun Raja	Haricharan
6.	"Mogathirai Prelude"		Performed by Phil Hartl, Quartet
7.	"Nenaikuthey"	Muthamil	Gaana Bala
8.	"Rathiri (Rap Version)"	Arun Raja, Vineeth	Haricharan, Arun Raja, Santhosh Narayanan, Vineeth

Release

Pizza released on 19 October 2012 in 100 theatres initially and the number of theatres was increased to 180 after the movie's positive response. Pizza was made on a shoestring budget and it collected Rs.1.85 crore in the first two weeks and emerged as the major winner at the box office when compare to 13 Tamil films released in October. The movie got some good appreciation from many leading Kollywood actors including Rajinikanth.

Bejoy Nambiar have bought the Hindi remake rights of Pizza and he will produce under his banner Getaway Films Producer Suresh Kondeti acquired the Telugu dubbing rights of the film Prashant Raj of Love Guru fame bought the Kannada remake rights of the film Following the film's stunning success, sources reported that movie may be remade in Hollywood

Critical reception

Pizza opened to very positive reviews from critics. N. Venkateswaran from The Times of India gave 4 out of 5 stars and wrote that director Karthik Subburaj displayed a "strong control of the medium and gives abundant display of his narrative skills", going to add: "If he maintains the quality of his menu and future offerings, Karthik [...] is sure to become one of Kollywood's top directors". Sify termed the film as "delicious" and described it as "entertaining and at the same time different in its approach". Malini Mannath from The New Indian Express described Pizza as "offbeat, intriguing and gripping, and nothing like what you’ve seen on Tamil screen before". A reviewer from Behindwoods.com stated, Karthik Subburaj played "all the cards required to make a quality horror suspense film with a thrilling screenplay, deft camerawork, strong performances, eerie sound effects and music". Indiaglitz.com wrote: "If the success of a thriller lies in bringing the film-goer to the edge of the seat, Pizza does it. With right toppings in the form of a taut screenplay, deft camera work, eerie sound effects and nice background score, the movie manages to leave a mark". Vivek Ramz of in.com rated it 3.5/5 and cited that Pizza was a "well made suspense thriller that keeps you guessing for most parts". Top10Cinema.com wrote that the story had been told "very interestingly" and that "horror movie buffs will certainly enjoy this Pizza".

Some mixed reviews were given by Malathi Rangarajan from The Hindu and Haricharan Pudipeddi from Nowrunning.com, who both criticized the first half of the film. The former claimed that the second half of Pizza has a "reasonably enjoyable tanginess, but to get to that you have to sit through the protraction of the first" and that "the screenplay [...] doesn’t render much help", while the latter concluded that the film displayed "signs of a craftily executed thriller, but falls short of satisfaction due to erratic narration", giving it 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Awards

Vikatan Awards

• Vikatan Award For Best Screenplay - Karthik Subbaraj
• Vikatan Award For Best Cinematography - Gopi Amarnath
• Vikatan Award For Best Editing - Leo John Paul

External links

• Pizza at IMDb