Movie Review – Manjummel Boys

An ode to Bromance

Long time back, when I was in school, I wanted to gift my best friend (male), the lyrics of “Mellinamae Mellinamae” from ‘Shahjahan’. Those were the days where we didn’t have internet to find the lyrics, it’s all heard through radio. ‘Shahjahan’ especially had songs with great lyrics. “Mellinamae Mellinamae” and “Minnalai Pidithu” were the ones at the top of the list. As we used to discuss the lyrics of both in school during all the periods, I thought of gifting the lyrics of my favorite among the two, “Mellinamae Mellinamae” to my best friend. I then dropped the idea thinking it’d be too gay. But see now, director Chidambaram took an evergreen romance song for a survival thriller with all boys.

‘Manjummel Boys’ is once in a lifetime kind of film. Glad that I could watch it in theatres on the verge of its OTT release. Thank god it survived the duration and ran in theatres till the time I could complete all my assignments. It would have been a serious miss if I had not watched the movie in theatres. If this film could be so much impactful in spite of knowing the storyline and nuances, I can’t help but wonder how it would have been for people who had watched without knowing anything about the film and in a jam packed theatre.

The second and third act of the film was top notch, there is nothing more to say about it but look at the ingenuity of the film in the first act. When they party, play or go through winding roads with a melodious song in the background, how fitting it is. How could Malayalam cinema achieve this so easily. ‘Chennai 600028’ is the only film which I could think to have come close to such a bonding. But ‘Manjummel Boys’ was clinical. It would have induced nostalgia for anyone.

The movie starts with “Kuthanthram” song, which has interesting lyrics. It gave me “Pardesi” vibes from ‘Dev D’. “Karthanthram” could have easily qualified in any of these drug based films but comes in a film which is totally opposite. Generally when writing a disaster film, the writers would write as if all the events are culminating to that one big event. Even if the scenes or situations are different, we still have that main event running at the back of our mind, especially when you watch the film second or third time. But here it’s just another chapter in the life. Just like how the characters wouldn’t be having any clue on what’s going to happen next, we too don’t get that feel. With films like these, the rewatch value is less because it’s just the escape event we’d be focused upon but here, the first act gives a genuine joy. The escape event is just an icing on the cake.

There have been lots of articles about how Subhash (Sreenath Bhasi) who doesn’t believe in god, eventually gets the status of god in the end, how the light from above which the taxi driver friend, Prasad (Khalid Rahman) calls out as god, eventually happens to Subhash also in the form of headlight which Kuttan (Soubin Shahir) wears. The leg injury was being compared to Pamban Swamigal, the characters going through Palani can’t be mere coincidence. The one thing which I noted in addition to these are the horns which Abhilash (Chandu Salimkumar) has when he sits outside being possessed. But even without all these themes and motifs, the film works like a charm.

Thankfully being ignorant helped me experience the movie in best possible way. As soon as the boys held the rope in the pre climax, many guessed the tug of war event in the beginning was done as foreshadowing for the main event but I couldn’t till the point Abhilash goes to the top of the rock to say, “loosu vidra”. After that it was only ecstasy, I could barely sit in my seat. Even while I type the words now, I could barely sit in my seat. Films like these with feels like these come very rarely. I’m happy that I got a chance to experience this ecstasy.

There was a mention in one of the articles asking, where are women in Malayalam cinema. I don’t know about other films but with respect to Manjummel Boys, “sometimes, dear, boys would have all the fun, there is no other choice.”

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.