Each time director Ranjith's master craftsmanship interlaced itself with Megastar Mammootty's brilliant performances, it resulted in creating electrifying responses at the Box Office. Their combination has produced class movies like 'Palerimanikyam' and also mass entertainers like 'Pranchiyettan & the Saint'.

This Vishu season, the duo is back with 'Puthan Panam' in which Mammootty plays the central character of Nithyananda Shenoy, a man hailing from Kumbala, a small town in the Kerala-Karnataka border.

The term 'Puthan Panam' means new money and the plot of the movie is initially set around demonetisation that the honorable Prime Minister of India declared on 8th November 2016. Shenoy is a business man with a thick Kasargod accent, who comes from Kumbala to Kochi to reclaim his money. One thing leads to another and his short visit to Kochi gets extended.

The last take of Ranjith on similar socially relevant topics like real estate empires and fake currency was "Indian Rupee" with Prithviraj in the lead, and the film was highly successful. The film "Puthan Panam" comes with the tagline "The New Indian Rupee".

Even though it shows signs of loopholes, the film keeps good pace in the first half which has many punch dialogues and sequences related to the after effects of demonetisation. But the second half loses the energy level to a loose screenplay. The focus of the movie shifts from 'the new money'. Errors in direction, which are unexpected from a renowned director like Ranjith disengages the audience completely for a certain time in the second half.

Mammootty is undoubtedly the best thing in the movie. He gives a true heavyweight performance, being completely in charge of his range and versatility. He has always been a master when it comes to handling different dialects, the Kasargod slang in this movie is one of his best feats ever. A huge cast, including Mamukkoya, Siddique, Baiju, Iniya, Hareesh Perumanna, Niranjana Anoop, Ganapathy, P Balachandran and Indrans deliver decent performances but fails to save a drowning screenplay.

The background score by Achu Rajamani hammers in the mass in the scenes and stand out. Kashmora and Maari fame cinematographer Om Prakash's sepia-toned frames are good and stylish.

Mammootty's screen presence, the background score, comedy sequences in the first half and the Kasargod dialect are the positive things to watch out for in the movie.