Irumbu Manithan revolves around Sundharam (Santhosh Prathap), a noble-minded person who runs a roadside eatery and lives with his three adopted children.
The plot is essentially about the rise, fall and eventual rise of an honest and determined individual who is influenced by greed, lust and betrayal. There is definitely a heartwarming tale buried in this plot, but director Disney’s writing is unimaginative.
What he gives us is an overly melodramatic film that is as stretchy as the parottas that Sundharam makes. Given that this is a character-driven film, we expect a proper character arc for Sundharam, but what we get are wild jumps that don’t make sense. The character’s rise and fall happen almost instantly.
At least his initial rise is believable as Disney spends the entire first half charting it. But both his fall and his rise from it happen in a matter of a single cut. The older films at least had a song to show such transformations, but we get nothing of that sort here, leading to plausibility issues. Santhosh Prathap is earnest and his relationship with his Man Friday, played by Ganja Karuppu is somewhat endearing, and that is the only reason we manage to stick around till the end.
