Movie Review – Action Hero Biju

A full on Nivin Pauly entertainer

‘Action Hero Biju’ is a much important cinema than what its perceived to be. All people see in ‘Action Hero Biju’ is fun moments in the life of police. Thanks to Nivin Pauly, there isn’t a moment of boredom in the film. But when you look at it closely. It’s one of the proper police films which deals with only the actions of police. Barring a needless romantic track, the film is an out and out police film. What GVM tried to do showing slices of life in his police trilogy, Abrid Shine achieves it effortlessly in just one film. Something in lieu of Mani Ratnam’s ‘Nayakan’ which achieves the greatness of ‘The Godfather Trilogy’, through just one film.

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The film could have been done only by Nivin Pauly, who has this charm to keep calm in any situation. He’s an effortless mass action hero when need be but otherwise, he keeps his calm throughout. Even in dire situations he plays coy and makes fun of people without annoying anyone. In fact, it’s his ‘nakkal’ which works big time for a movie like this. But the movie is not just about how Sub-Inspector Biju (Nivin Pauly) is a superhuman who solves any case. In fact, he’s not super human. He goes about his job like a sincere office goer. There are some cases he can’t solve, there are some cases in which he’s wrong. But all these are chapters in his police diary where he doesn’t have time to react emotionally. Even at places where he’s not emotionally involved, he isn’t emotionally detached too. There is a fine line in between both where a policeman has to deal with, which Nivin Pauly does beautifully. This film could be the greatest tribute to the policeman.

The film is about how Biju handles each case. Initially I thought, that this would end and there would be one important case he’d be involved for the rest of the film, there would be some twist etc. but it never happens. At end of first half I again thought the same when Karate Rajesh track was introduced. Because the film opened with that track, I thought the first half would be reserved for fun and second half for serious story. On one side I was expecting the same and on other I didn’t want it to be a negative film at any cost because the first half was most lovable.

There were a variety of aspects dealt in the first half. Apart from the obvious serious as well as not so serious cases. The dog bite of a kid looks like not so serious case when heard from the phone but he takes down the details and pays a visit to the hospital to see how bad her condition is. We then get to know the seriousness. As the film starts with that story and the villain looked like a serious offender with political connections. That looked like the main story of the film. But that ends there. Some cases are as silly as a man flashing his penis on screen and some as serious as death of a kid. He had to hold his composure everywhere.

Even the suicide case where the kid dies, he worries about her mother getting jail term for attempt murder and the naval officer angle was the icing on the cake of an already well-made story. If auto driver and his affair’s case is about fun, the Pavithran (Suraj Venjaramoodu) – wife is case is about hear break. In fact, that’s the most heartbreaking scene of the movie. The fact that the director is able to achieve such high emotions in so little time is something to be appreciated of.

The case where the ladies approach him for complaining against a man who bathes almost nude in their compound is the case where we see Nivin Pauly in full flair. Such a charmer. And the final case where he had to deal with a robbery shows that how not everything would happen as per his plan. Sometimes law can be cruel even if correct. So, when he gets to find out Karate Rajesh after that, he vents out all his anger on him. May be a reason he could stand the stab. May be even the romance is so little yet not completely taken out of the equation because a police officer gets only that much time to spend for his family or may be the film wanted to show that a police officer is romantic in spite of his schedule because he too is a human or maybe it’s plain old-fashioned way to introduce songs in the film.

The film plainly is an amalgamation of short films. Each case is a chapter in police officers’ life but it doesn’t feel like a story where the cases are listed but feels like how it’d feel in a first person. He’s of course a hero, he doesn’t receive any threat anytime whatsoever but he’s a hero who has limitations. And the way we feel how a police personal feels in first person is because of the fact of certain fun stories like the walkie talkie incident and how even when the police who lost it comes to them and tells a sentimental dialogue for which they ridicule. It all feels like a good old office humor, which no movies have showed till date. Thanks to Nivin Pauly who effortlessly walks us through the life of police inspector so seamlessly, making the film is such a work of art.

Movie Review – Driving License

Charm and warm

I was saying that I’d want to get converted as Malayali after watching this film. Such has been Malayalam movies off late. For some past 4,5 years. Taking a nothing story and making it neat and crisp. A lot of movies have come out this way which makes a great evening time watch instead of being a soupy tear jerker.

After seeing favorable reviews for the most part, I decided to watch the movie. Also, it has Prithviraj so it was an added advantage. When I saw that the film was about a superstar’s journey and it was being produced by Prithviraj I got even more interested. The opening scene where he comes a star and bashes up the villains increased the curiosity one notch up.

But with all that coming to an end and somewhere into the movie when I got to know that it’s a comedy, I was slightly disappointed. It’s not one of my favorite genres. The first half in fact was not really great. What started as a great standoff between a superstar and common man slightly fizzled away with time. There is only this much one can do when you have two people fighting. So, it became kind of monotonous.

The premise of the movie was simple as it can get, yet it’s an interesting one. I loved the way it was handled by showing Hareendran (Prithviraj) as not so great a man and not so great a villain. Even though he’s a superstar he values his commitment, loves his wife, a beautiful Deepti Sati, and at the same time a practical person too when he tells that no one asks him for license while driving, and shouting at the MVI when he sees media. Instead of him saying that he’d want to get license no matter what or going by the heroic way of procuring license only in legal manner he goes the common man way.

Similarly, MVI Kuruvilla (Suraj Venjarammoodu) is not someone who takes bribe and allows people with license and the same person is the one who is okay in giving license for someone with predated form. It’s not a big juncture where he breaks the rule. He knows the chaos it’d lead to if the actor had to come there. That’s the beauty of the script. We don’t see angels and demons as heroes and villains. We see common people. We are so used to seeing things as black and white in cinema but when it comes to real life, we don’t even know what all wrongs we are doing.

In ‘Driving License’ its people like us whom we see on screen. At some point we are judgmental but we let them be as such. It’s clear writing which makes us accept the people with real plus and minuses rather than something invented just for the sake of it. Credit has to be given to the actors too to have made it possible for us to accept them like that. Especially Prithviraj for being in negative characters who is not outright villainous but someone whom we’d love less likely between the two. He first did it in ‘Ayyappanum Koshiyum’ and now in ‘Driving License’, in the order of movies that I’ve watched.

There are scenes which was boring and slow but nothing was bad scene. The only bad scene if I’ve to knit pick would be the one was Hareendran runs to save the Kuruvilla. That was the only heroic moment where he was projected like being a hero in real life. That was a little true literal. The other scenes where he gives speech were more heroic like the film association head comments. It’s a great move by not letting Prithviraj show his acting powers even in the climax. The scene in car where Kuruvilla cries could have been easily used to showcase Prithviraj’s talent, something which Kamal would do but here he underplays even that and restores normalcy.