Pizza (2012 film)


Pizza is a 2012 Indian Tamil-language horror film written and directed by debutant Karthik Subbaraj. The film features Vijay Sethupathi and Remya Nambeesan in lead roles, while Aadukalam Naren, Jayakumar, Pooja Ramachandran and Bobby Simha play supporting roles.
The story is about a pizza delivery boy Michael who lands in a mysterious predicament and how it causes a dramatic change in his life. The film, produced by C. V. Kumar under Thirukumaran Entertainment, was released by Sangam Cinemas. Featuring music composed by Santhosh Narayanan and cinematography by Gopi Amarnath, it was the first Tamil film to feature 7.1 surround sound. Pizza released on 19 October 2012 and went on to become a major critical and commercial success.
Pizza was later dubbed into Telugu under the same name and remade into Kannada as Whistle and in Hindi as Pizza. It was also remade into the Bengali film Golpo Holeo Shotti.

Plot

Michael Karthikeyan is a pizza delivery boy who lives with his girlfriend Anu. She is an aspiring novelist and is researching for writing a horror story, whereas Michael does not believe in supernatural powers, but 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 daughter is possessed by a spirit. Meanwhile, Anu becomes pregnant, and after a brief altercation, Michael and Anu get covertly married. One particular day, Michael goes out to deliver a pizza to a customer and returns to the restaurant in a state of shock while covered in blood; he is apparently injured, keeps constantly muttering Anu's name, and seems to be worried about her. When his boss questions him, Michael explains that he had been to deliver a pizza to a customer named Smitha in a bungalow and recounts the events that happened at the bungalow.
Smitha requests Michael to wait downstairs while she goes upstairs to retrieve change. Almost immediately, there is power failure, which alarms Michael. While waiting downstairs completely alone in the dark, Michael hears a loud unidentifiable noise from the bedroom upstairs. Going up to investigate, he finds Smitha murdered suspiciously and notices one slice the pizza he had delivered to be missing, suggesting that there may be somebody else in the house. Horrified, Michael makes a dash for the door only to realize that it has been locked from the outside. Further more when the murdered woman's husband Bobby arrives, he at first believes he stumbles upon his wife having an affair. Through his cellphone Michael communicates with Bobby and explains his situation thoroughly instigating Bobby to aid him on how to get out of the house. Moreover, Bobby suddenly disappears from the front entrance, and is found by Michael inside the house mysteriously murdered in the same room as his wife, with two slices of the pizza now missing. Also, Michael encounters the couple's child "Nithya", identical to the name of the spirit allegedly possessing Shanmugam's daughter.
Michael tries everything he can to get out of the house including trying to break down the sealed doors leading outside, to using the house phone which happens to work even though the line is dead. Michael manages to contact Anu using the phone and gets her to contact to the local police to come and rescue him. 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 a girl named Anu, implying that she is Michael's girl friend, Anu. The police disclose that Michael is a suspect regarding the murder case and attempt to arrest him. Confused and in tears, Michael does not believe the policemen and attempts to escape the clutches of these police men in order to go in search of Anu.
While trying to escape, Michael witnesses the police getting dragged into the house and being killed. At this juncture, Michael, in a horrified state, 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 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. Meanwhile, Michael seems to continue his search for Anu, has constant health issues, and seems to be disturbed by ghosts and supernatural entities.
As Michael during a delivery stops and calls Anu, the true story of what had happened is disclosed. The Income Tax department had planned on a raid at the restaurant owner Shanmugam's house. Shanmugam who has diamonds worth around 20 million 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 comes in contact with the hidden diamonds. Michael and Anu decide that stealing those diamonds would improve their life style and support their baby. So, they concoct a clever story in which Michael convincingly "forgets" the Pizza bag at the "haunted" bungalow which Shanmugam would never enter into, thanks to his fear of supernatural powers. Meanwhile, Anu has left to Kochi via Bengaluru with the diamonds and her belongings, and has obtained fake documentation using which Michael and Anu can settle abroad.
Michael, after the phone call, goes to deliver a pizza to a house and he encounters a series of events similar to the story he had narrated. Inside, he meets a little girl identical to the "Nithya" he had described in his story. Michael is locked inside the home with "Nithya" curiously looking at him. The lights then goes off followed by Michael's gasping sound in fear.

Cast

The soundtrack album and background score was composed by Santhosh Narayanan. The lyrics for the songs were written by Kabilan, Arunraja Kamaraj, Muthamil and Vineeth.
Pizza is Santhosh's second album after Attakathi. The audio rights for the soundtrack album were purchased by Think Music. The soundtrack album for the film was launched on 6 September 2012, at Sathyam Cinemas, Chennai. Along with the film's cast and crew, celebrities such as director Dharani, Prabhu Solomon, Seenu Ramasamy, Balaji Mohan, S. R. Prabhakaran, Pa. Ranjith, actor Vaibhav Reddy, lyricist Madhan Karky and singers Haricharan, Gana Bala graced the event.
The album received mixed review from Behindwoods, stating that "The album stands out for its experimentation with the songs being targeted totally at the youth. The couple of instrumental pieces add more embellishment" giving a rating of 2.5 out of 5.
The soundtrack album of the Telugu dubbed version Pizza was released on 12 December 2012.

Release

Pizza was released on 19 October 2012 by Sangam Cinemas Chennai, in 300 theatres initially and the number of theatres was increased to 600 after the film's positive response. Pizza was made on a budget 15 million. The satellite rights of the film were secured by Sun TV.
Bejoy Nambiar 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, while Prashant Raj of Love Guru fame bought the Kannada remake rights of the film. Following the film's success, sources reported that it may be remade in Hollywood as well. Renowned Bengali Director Birsa Dasgupta was also remaking the film as Golpo Holeo Shotti.

Critical reception

Pizza received widespread acclaim 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.

Sequel

A sequel called was produced and released the following year by the same production house. The sequel did not carry on with the characters from Pizza, but told another eerie tale, with Ashok Selvan and Sanchita Shetty playing the lead roles.

Awards

2nd South Indian International Movie Awards
Vikatan Awards
7th Vijay Awards
The success of Pizza turned Vijay Sethupathi into one of the most sought-after actors in Tamil cinema. Along with Pizza, Sethupathi scored back-to-back successes with Sundarapandian and Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom in the same year resulting in a rise in his popularity.
Film critic Baradwaj Rangan stated that Sethupathi had become " sort of indie-film star, the first ever in Tamil cinema". The film also established C. V. Kumar as a producer who went on to produce films with innovative themes throughout his career. Pizza and Kadhalil Sodhappuvadhu Eppadi became trendsetters and established the trend of short filmmakers making their cinematic debut.