The hit makers Rafi-Makartin and Dileep come together in 'Pandipada'. The movie is expected to be another comedy like any other Rafi-Mekartin movie. Life was never easy for friends Bhuvanachandran and Bhasi. All the ventures they started were a flop. Every failure leads to the next project. With high hopes they started a Real Estate business with the funds raised from friends and family. No surprise, the Real Estate business had the same fate of their earlier ventures. Bhuvanachandran ran away from his town leaving Bhasi behind. Bhasi did the same too. Bhuvanachandran reached a village named "Karuvelikattil" in Tamil Nadu. Agriculture was main trade there. Soon he met Bhasi as a coincidence. Leaving their troubled past, they decided to do farming and lead a good life. Karuppayya and Pandidurey are the chieftains on the village. Pandidurey has an army of young thugs nick named "Pandippada", a nightmare for the whole village. Bhuvanachandran and Bhasi become the favorites of both Karuppayya and Pandidurey in short time. They please both chiefs in a convincing manner. Trouble starts when Bhuvanachandran met Meena, daughter of Karuppayya. They fall in love. On finding this Pandidurey becomes so upset that his ally has an affair with his enemy's daughter. Karuppayya is furious and feels betrayed that someone he sheltered is having an affair with his daughter. He is set to finish Bhuvanachandran. Bhuvanchandran is so sure that he will be killed whether by Karuppayya or Pandidurey; he decides to run for his life. To his surprise he get some unexpected help. Rafi-Mekartin depicts the interesting and humorous story about the struggle to survive. Dilip is Bhuvanachandran and Bhasi is Harisri Ashokan. Rajan P Dev does Karuppayya's role and Prakash Raj does Pandidurey. Meena is Navya Nair. Cochin Haneefa, Indrans, Salim Kumar, Ambika, Sukumari etc are in the supporting roles. Review Bhuvan, a small time real estate broker, gets conned into buying land in a village in Tamilnadu. He takes money from a loan shark (Hanifa) and comes to the village to realize that the property is the bone of contention between two landlords. Karupuswamy (Rajan P Dev) and Pandidurai (Prakashraj) are the two chieftains at loggerheads. Pandidurai has an army known as Pandipada. Bhuvan manages to win the heart of Karupuswamy and his mother. Karupuswamy's daughter Meena (Navya Nair) falls in love with Bhuvan. At this juncture, Pandidurai who sees Meena falls in love with her. Bhuvan uses this to his advantage by acting as the go-between for the two and finally manages to change the mind of the warring landlords and take possession of the land. Dilip as Bhuvan does his part well and so also the other actors. Prakashraj, the seasoned actor, steals the show with his comedy timing. The major flaw in this fun-filled film is that Pandipada is a rehash of the same director's earlier films. The same situation of a Malayali in alien land or in a non-Malayali house and the hero always being on the run was seen in the two earlier films of the same director duo. In both the earlier films also, the hero was Dilip. Suresh Peters's music sounds very much like Tamil film music. Saloo George's cinematography is above average. The film is at best "old wine in new bottle".
