Movie Review – Maheshinte Prathikaaram

Not to the perfect size?

This movie was one of my long hauled overdue and somehow escaped my radar all this while. Considered to be the finest of Fahadh Faasil and start of a new era by Dileesh Pothan and Syam Pushkaran. Unfortunately as I had watched and blown away by ‘Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum’, as a non malayalee who doesn’t understand the meaning of the words, even by the rhyme of it, ‘Maheshinte Prathikaaram’ was a little underwhelming. I guess both of it together would work as a dual feature, not like that or Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, but something like that of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ and ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’. The feeling was similar to how it felt after watching ‘Mr. Smith goes to Washington’ after being blown away by ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’

The initial vibe of the film was terrific, the elongation of the word “pennu” and the sudden halt while saying “Idukki” in the titular song would give smiles to anyone settling in theatre. It’d have given a proper settling of rustling leaves vibes when you had seen people enter the theatre and you’re already in your dreamland. I thought it was going to be one happy film seeing that song sequence but it was entirely not so.

Mahesh (Fahadh Faasil) is a normal guy, in writer Sujatha’s words, a satharanan, one who has lived his life in peace in a small town, known by his friends and hated by none. He’s neither skillful nor terrible. He lives his life as if he’s not even in the frame. He loves a girl who too has affection on him but it doesn’t materialize for obvious reasons, the reason not explained in the movie but it felt like an eventual. This breakup felt harsher and realistic than Fahadh Faasil’s highly acclaimed but terribly boring ‘Annayum Rasoolum’. He doesn’t grimace in pain, may be part of him too knew that it was not going to happen. There isn’t any bitching, thankfully. Furthermore, post her marriage we don’t see her suffer. There were mild cues in the movie where the groom was shown as a possessive man, but thankfully being a positive non melodramatic movie we don’t see her suffering even though a part of us who sympathize with Mahesh would want that.

Due a sequence of events, a Butterfly Effect may be, we see Mahesh getting into a fight and getting beaten up and he swears that he wouldn’t wear a chappal until he avenges his man. While we think that the movie was going to get into a serious tone, the man who beat him up goes to Dubai. It was a terrific interval. It’d have been great if the movie had just ended there. The second half felt obvious. A girl who’s a sister of that man, Mahesh avenging him and asking for the girl, felt a little bit preposterous. The punch that he had expected while the directors name flashes on screen actually happens during the interval block.

As much as one would want to appreciate Fahadh Faasil, not just him but everyone could be appreciated in the same vein. There wasn’t a single badly acted scene in the whole movie. Everyone did their role to perfection. Even Mahesh’s Kung Fu colleague who beats up the auto driver. The climax fight gets us on the hook but isn’t it a film which is greater than this to have our emotions ridden in such a straight forward scene.

There was a part where Mahesh’s dad asks him not to call his studio as shop. There was a slight “coming of age” touch there but it wasn’t overdone and didn’t drift the film in some other direction. But it’s something which could’ve even be taken off and the film would have still worked fine and his character would have felt earthier. For some reason I was constantly getting ‘C/o Kancharapalem’ vibes which made me feel that this film as a less great one among the two.

As I said before, this movie would have worked better if I had seen it first and seen it with less disturbance. It’s not a movie for pause and play, in fact no movie is. But as it plays around with the feelings and emotions more than the story, a strong settling time would be appreciated.

Movie Review – Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum

The gold that it chokes

What started as a typical Fahadh Faasil film with a slow start of unsuspecting characters takes a U turn as soon as Fahadh Faasil arrives on screen. It has all the elements like his other movies which starts with a story without him in the beginning, an everyday routine of them, to the point that it makes us feel we need a breather, then we yearn for his arrival so that there could would be some entertainment and finally bam he arrives. It’s one way of writing massy entertainers which is wrapped in the artsy format. Fahadh Faasil somehow gets these roles or the makers write one for him always.

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Fahadh gets a terrific intro in the bus, post which he’s caught red-handed and handed over to police station. It’s doesn’t take much time for us to develop hatred towards him. Given the way the couple complaint, it’s only easy to deduce that the incident has happened for real so it’s an open and shut case for police but they use them to fullest of advantage so that they could mint as much money as possible. What looks like a story between the couple, Sreeja (Nimisha Sajayan) and Prasad (Suraj Venjaramoodu) and the thief, Prasad (Fahadh Faasil) has police also playing a substantial part.

It’s like a game of Raja Rani, where everyone has equal importance. In fact, they have more importance. It’s typically a scene or a sequence which put in plain words show how the judges are bigger thieves than the culprit and the victim. But the way its built, it’s a careful constructed maze. There is no loud music, there isn’t any tools which manipulate us, but plain straightforward acting. As honest as the couple are, we can’t help but feel sorry for them. Seeing the confidence, we doubt ourselves whether Fahadh has really stolen the chain and the way the police perform, especially A.S.I Chandran (Alencier Ley Lopez) we feel he’s for real. In fact, the way the duo of Chandran and the other police officer (Sivadas Kannur) perform, they were equivalent to Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah in Maqbool. Only that, here they’re not together but their act together is nothing short of spectacle.

In a movie like this, it’s really tough to hold the curiosity of audience. Editing here is lovely. The opening part where they both get married are not shown on screen but we get to know it in bits and pieces in the middle. The tension is not evident on screen but they’re not a romantic couple, the strain of what they’ve undergone in life shows on screen. That’s where both Suraj Venjaramoodu and Nimisha Sajayan are excellent. In fact, Suraj looks first choice for roles like this where he shouldn’t cry when sad. Maybe it’s becoming a template role for him but his innocence is lovely. Even though Fahadh mercilessly manipulates his, he still has an ear for him. He couldn’t leave him to walk free because he feels it would be a cheating for his wife yet he couldn’t hold on to him to bring him down because he’s not powerful enough and he has a little bit of sympathy towards him. He does both of it and struggles to survive. It’s typical of any man in a middle-class family. Every middle-class member could relate to it. On the other hand, Nimisha’s role is straight forward, she has a motherly innocent nature about her who first feels angry and then doesn’t.

This has got to be Fahadh Faasil’s best. When the film was taking a familiar twist with police trying to use wrong evidence, the way he asks Prasad to tell the truth in court and make him free was one of his masterstrokes. It looks all good till the end but there is one frame where he stares at the couple and through that one stare, his villainous nature becomes evident. That’s some lovely acting. I didn’t like the way it ended which gave a ray of hope as if all is fine. I couldn’t deduce much from the couple’s angle, who looked satisfied but may be the police had mellowed down, still he’s doing his job of not being an honest man. It’s not outrightly told that he has taken leave or retired. And Fahadh through to looks of it, feels like a man who’s searching for job. But nothing could be deduced so easily from his character. Maybe he’s looking for another robbery. But I’d like to take it in a negative angle which makes it more interesting.

Movie Review – Ee.Ma.Yau.

Death Note!

Known more widely because of his ‘Jallikkattu’, which I watched sometime back. I wasn’t mighty impressed. It was still a show biz. So I wasn’t having great expectation while watching ‘Ee.Ma.Yau’. I thought this would be another film of his which would have been loved by many but I wouldn’t like and thus have to incur the wrath of fans. But it was drastically different experience. In fact, my opinion about Lijo Jose totally changes. This probably might be his finest films where he hasn’t done anything preposterous but only what is necessary for the film.

Ignorance is a bliss and I firmly believe that because, only because of that I had the surprise factor for the movie lingering till the end of opening credits. Having no idea of what the film was about and expecting a raw violent film, thanks to Lijo Jose’s other films and the poster of this film, I was in for a surprise when I discovered what the title meant. The opening shot was a long shot of death procession and only after the end of it, the title card appears and through subtitles I got to know what the title meant. I guess all the people who had not known the language could identify with it.

More than anything filmmakers like Lijo Jose, inspire us. Thanks to a film like ‘Ee.Ma.Yau’ where the story is bare minimum but made in a really interesting way. It could easily have been a depressing docudrama but it ends up being a movie with a lot of emotions masked by satire. Importantly, practical. That’s what made the film work.

Having known the title, we wait for a good twenty minutes for the eventual to happen. The titular character first appears in bus with a duck, slaps someone, goes home and talks to himself, drinks with his son, talks about his death, performs a play and finally dies. Those twenty minutes were shot like a thriller when we know what’s going to happen eventually. That’s one of the lovely little tricks of the film. But to shoot till that is not a big deal because there are a million ways to make it interesting, in fact it can be taken like a short film project. But what happens next is what the film is about.

Post the death of Vavachan Mesthiri (Kainakary Thankaraj), his family is heartbroken and the almost the entire village comes for mourning. The way the people in his family was named was lovely, Sabeth for Elizabeth, Nissa for Agnissa, to name a few. His son Eeshi (Chemban Vinod Jose) is a heart broken man and doesn’t know what to do after the death of his father. I’ve always thought about this concept. It’s not something to get information prior hand so when the eventuality strikes, it always comes as a shocker. The same happens to Eeshi and that’s when his friend Ayyapan (Vinayakan) comes to the rescue.

Together they go in search to buy various stuffs for his death and his other friends go to check on doctor and vicar. The comedy of errors is brilliant. The doctor is sloshed out, his wife is also a little tipsy, an amazing nurse who drives the bike and the best of the lot is the vicar, Fr. Zacharia Parappurathu (Dileesh Pothan) who’s a crime novel enthusiast. Off late I’m becoming a fan of Dileesh Pothan. He’s great in these small roles.

There were lot of fun moments in the film but to list a few, the naming in the card where Eeshi had to intervene to correct was lovely, especially when his friend asks with what degree his wife had graduated. We get to know that the person who plays band had asked for marrying his sister. It’s a great idea when his boyfriend comes all of a sudden to shoo him off. Not before trying to kiss her in the guise of consoling her.

In the end it culminates to one big typical Lijo Jose film moment where the film explodes and when you have an actor like Chemban Vinod Jose, you finally get to know how he has used him as a trump card. If I had to complain, I’d have liked it if the film had ended after he keeps the cross on his father’s death bed. Unnecessarily it wavers post that, which could have been avoided.

Movie Review – Joseph

Works, on and off

Having been on a string on Malayalam movies, it has now become monotonous. Joseph is another movie which again would have worked greatly if watched out of the blue. Not when you’re continuously watching. Now it has become like Tamil film where I’d know what to expect and won’t be satisfied just if it’s as per expectation but will be satisfied only if it’s different from what I expect. Same thing has happened with Malayalam movies off late too, as now I’ve got to know what it is about.

Joseph starts on an interesting note with a retired policeman Joseph Parekkatil (Joju George) solving a crime in jiffy. A typical mallu film setup of showing an unheroic way of heroism. Post that, till the interval the film is jarring. We slowly get to know his love life, his past and present. There was no surprise when we know that his family members were not involved in accident, but murder. Two people getting killed at the same point and going in for organ donation is too easy a twist to unravel. But the way it was projected as some great revelation didn’t work.

The second half kind of engages and forms a good climax, but not necessarily a great one because as a person who has no interest in life, it’s inevitable that whatever happens was bound to happen. The detachment strips the film of emotional quotient. I guess that’s partly the intention of movie, by solving the crime peacefully but it went a step beyond and made us feel bored. The screenplay could definitely had been more engaging. The film as a whole could have been trimmed to a great extent. Slow always need not be great.

Joju George almost single handedly carries the film on his shoulders. After a point its tiring to see him carry it on his shoulders. There were different techniques that the director had employed to go back to the past and come back to present but it was not done with any hassle. As a technique it works but again the same scene could have been more entertaining. The wow factor was missing in them. And apart from Joju George, none of the other characters make an impact, may be with the exception of Dileesh Pothan who was exceptional as a mourning husband of Stella.

The film tried its best to bridge the gap between a mass film and an art film in the thriller genre but doesn’t get hold of both. As much as the movie could be appreciated for the story, the same couldn’t be said about the screenplay, which tries to achieve so much but ends up being literal in the end.

Also, Joju George severely reminds us of Biju Menon in ‘Ayyappanum Koshiyum’ and makes us feel, “wouldn’t it have been better if he had acted in it”. ‘Joseph’ even though gives the satisfaction of knowing a great story doesn’t give us the satisfaction of watching a great. It’s one of the films which would have better worked as a book.

Movie Review – Trance

Wonder Why?

‘Trance’ is a confusing movie. So much so that we don’t even know why so much money, effort was used to make a film which looks only like a mockery. The joke finally is on them. They make a mockery of themselves. I too was waiting for something or the other to happen but the same stuff gets repeated again and again till the end. This storyline is so basic that there need not be so much effort put to make a big film out of it.

If the idea of the film is to showcase the bad side of these missionaries and evangelist, don’t people already know it. Why a three-hour film for it? it was definitely funny but having seen them as bit jokes in numerous Tamil films, I didn’t get the idea of making a whole film out of it. I thought there would be a bigger picture behind all this. I at least hoped. But nothing of that sort happened.

My biggest disappointment was the name ‘Trance’. I expected a super stoner film. That too with big cast involved I was expecting a riot but it was made to look like a serious film, gets a depressing overtone and ends up being a nothing movie. If the point of the film was to educate, wish at least it had taken the PK route where even though it looked like an extension of Vivek jokes in Tamil, the scenes were really funny. That’s one advantage of Rajkumar Hirani being the director. He knows the craft perfectly.

The only happy thing about the film is that there were no protests against it. By reading between the lines I guess the attempt of the director was to make a film on Christianity by the anti-Christian elements. The idea was acknowledgeable but the execution was pathetic because the film was not at all practical. Just like that, the characters come and go without any reason. And the scenes are not at all logical and what’s worse it’s not even funny.

Most of the film’s criticism was towards the slow and boring second half. I believe its because everyone expected things to change at least in second half but it doesn’t. Thus, the disappointment. If not for that factor, the whole film is a lull. The movies first act is terrific when we don’t know what its all about. Whether to be happy or sad or depressed but then when the movie gets to focus on a storyline it falls miserably. The climax where is too hard to believe and impractical. Again, a storyline which gets injected right towards the end which doesn’t stick to our mind. A pastor who’s so famous can be reached through phone just by a common man and can be found in church just like that. He could also enter and kill a couple of big shots just like that. Too many just like that’s for my liking.

The director wanted to give a platform for Fahad to go berserk but if it had been a script like ‘Magnolia’ or ‘The Wolf of the Wall Street’ then Fahad would have been remembered like a Tom Cruise or DiCaprio respectively but what he does looks just like a tomfoolery with a wafer thin script. Whereas GVM gets a solid role which fits him to the tee. All in all ‘Trance’ is a deep disappointment.