Movie, you had me at "Murder Truck"

I have a theory about film.  (I have many theories about film, but this is the one I keep coming back to.)  My theory is this: any situation can be turned into a comedy by adding the words "wackiness ensues when . . ." to the beginning of the synopsis.  In the case of Maragadha Naamayam (2017), wackiness ensues when a pair of petty criminals resort to necromancy in their pursuit of a cursed emerald.

Senguttavan (Aadhi) and Elango (Daniel Annie Pope) are aspiring jewel smugglers, apprenticed to Nochukuppam (Ramdoss), a surprisingly sensible smuggler who deliberately avoids the big scores, opting to just smuggle enough to get by.  Senguttavan is frustrated, since he got into the business in order to make money, but Nochukupam is determined to play it safe.

Senguttavan is a little distracted from his pursuit of the smuggler's craft by his hopeless crush on Chanakaya (Nikki Galrani).  He's never spoken to her, only pined from afar, and before he can approach her, she becomes engaged to another man, who turns out to be an abusive jerk.

And then Senguttavan gets his big chance.  (His big chance to make money smuggling, that is; Chanakaya marries the abusive jerk and vanishes from the movie.  For now.)  A local fixer named John (Mime Gopi) is looking for someone to bring him a huge emerald called the Maragadha Naanayam, or the "Emerald Coin" if the subtitles are to be believed.  None of the local smugglers will take the job, not even the infamous Twinkle Ramanathan (Anandaraj), because the emerald carries a deadly curse.

Nochukuppam wants nothing to do with the job, but Elango agrees to help, as long as Senguttavan agrees to visit a priest first and seek spiritual protection.  The priest shows them the spirits of the 132 previous victims of the curse, all run over by the same truck, and gives them a lemon, along with a mantra to summon the spirit of one of the previous victims to possess the lemon, which should ward off the murder truck.

The pair try the mantra, attempting to summon the spirit of Elango's uncle Chidambaram, but it does not seem to work, and then they are told that Nochukuppan has suddenly died.  They dutifully attend the funeral of their beloved mentor, and the lemon drops unnoticed into the grave.  That night, the hapless smugglers are confronted by the ghost of Chidambaram in Nochukuppan's body.  The ghost uncle is bound to help the pair retrieve the emerald safely, whether they want him to or not.  (They do not.)  But he insists on bringing over three of his friends to help, so after a late night search for recently deceased bodies, one of which turns out to be Chanakaya, there are three (and occasionally four) dead bodies walking around, Twinkle is suddenly interested in the emerald after all and happy to kill to get it, and then things start to get weird.

Maragadha Naanayam has all the ingredients for an incredibly broad black comedy/slapstick farce, but instead it's the surprisingly nuanced story of two petty criminals learning to trust and appreciate their zombie cohorts.  Don't get me wrong, this is a farce, and some of the jokes are quite dark, but the humor is grounded in character, and the characters are layered and well rounded.  They even handle the "ghost of a male wrestler inhabiting the corpse of the female love interest" plotline with a deft touch.  I was expecting more wackiness, but I can live with a good movie instead.