Ambitious, unruly and clumsy
Too many cooks spoil the broth. Trying to fiddle with all the innovative techniques like hyperlink cinema, hand held camera, multiple storylines etc. and giving us a product, which could not stay true to any genre, was naturally a disaster. Even though it was a box office disaster, may be it could have been something which people, at least a section of them, would have been in awe, because of the techniques employed, when it first released, when Lijo Jose was not a household name. However, when you now know who Lijo Jose is, it feels utterly disastrous.
There is ambition, ambition and ambition in every little scene, right from the start of film, until the end. So much so that it becomes annoying even before the actual film starts. There is a Mysskin like top angle shot where a jeep crashes, then a Tamil speaking villager in cycle, a gang of people chasing someone. An ideal premise for interlink cinema but too many details and the rains and the lighting just spoils the entire aesthetics of the film. Our eyes gets strained even before the opening credits ends.
The first story revolves around Tamil migrants with Swarnavel (Indrajith Sukumaran) liking one of the girls there, namely, Marakatham (Parvathy Thiruvothu). There is also someone else who is interested in Marakatham, who comes across as a dummy minor, Nachimuthu (Sudheer Karamana). Lakshmi (Rohini) is also in the mix whose character is inconsistent. She initially likes the vibe between Swarnavel and Marakatham but after a point of time, helps Nachimuthu marry her. May be the money has done the trick for her. But, when she gets to know in the end that Nachimuthu is a cheat, she is again upset. So, it’s all shady. Most of the things happen in background. But, whatever happens in foreground, that too isn’t clear. However, Rohini scores amongst all and emerges the winner in the story. Indrajith is pathetic with false accent. Paravaty as always tries too hard. With each film of his where she had done these ‘different’ roles, I tend to lose respect towards her. Only the opening act with “Kadhal Vanthiruchu” song is nice, otherwise it’s a mundane story of poor people.
The next story involves almost every other person in the film. Jyothi Lal (Prithviraj Sukumaran) who’s the henchman of Sony (Rajeev Pillai) kills the husband of Liji Punnose (Swetha Menon) for which she seeks revenge. But that goes awry as Jyothi comes out alive out of the fight. The only good thing to happen out of it is she gets a partner. There is no romance, no nothing. Some horrible acting and then they are together. No emotion was there to be seen.
Finally, Jyothi saves Surya Prabha (Rima Kallingal) during the climax fight. Even though Lijo Jose has tried so hard to to make mass scenes for Prithviraj, all of them fail miserably. None of the scene works, action choreography is poor, and editing is messy with the joints happening at absurd places and in the end, nothing registers in mind. I’m amazed as to how Prithviraj choses movies. He has nothing to do in the movie except being a driver for different people, as much as he refuses that, he does that only.
In the end when the entire story unites and the film ends, I am sure coming out of theatre would have felt like coming out of water after taking a deep breath. So exhaustive it was.
constantscribbles 