The protagonist Pavi is a clear mish-mash of several characters that Dileep has played in his heydays, with no texture in the writing to make him stand out. The bar is currently set too low for Dileep as a performer since he's been busy attaching himself to crap like Bandra and Thankamani, so anything marginally better will come across as "oh hey, we got our vintage Dileep back!" - HELLL NAWWW! Rajesh Raghavan's screenplays (3 Dots, Onnum Mindathe, Aravindante Athidhikal) have never appealed to me. How did a promising director like Vineeth Kumar decide to collaborate with him after listening to the one-liner?
Pavi Caretaker plays out like a typical Dileep film from the 2000s and early 2010s, with superficial writing. None of the characters other than the protagonist get any fleshing out. You'll find countless instances of drab, Dileep-brand™ humor that you've already seen in yesteryear blockbusters of his. There's reactionary humor, there's slapstick, verbal humor, self-deprecating humor, etcetera. But the real laughs are hard to come by. The only scene that mildly pushes the actor in Dileep is one where he and Johny Antony are standing on the terrace of the apartment, and he's exhibiting his emotionally vulnerable side. The sweet golden retriever (who goes by "Bro" in the film) sidekick is always an adorable presence, though he's hardly there when the film needs him.
One or two songs (by Midhun Mukundan) are nice compositions, and they're also captured well by DOP Sanu Thahir. A film like this can only work when you have extremely solid supporting talents (which Dileep had the fortune of working with, during the 2000s), and here, we don't really find any. For instance, the role played by Raadhika Sarathkumar would have been infinitely better if we still had Kalpana Chechi. Johny Antony's character would've been better if we still had Cochin Haneefa. The five heroines too, lack identity beyond their smiles, shrieks, and smugs.
