Drishyam - 'A fresh and thrilling visual treat'

Any movie is built by placing a lot of pieces together. And the foundation for any great movie is usually a good story and a strong script. In Drishyam its foundation scores full marks and all other pieces like direction, acting, editing also comes out with flying colors

(+) Loved the 'realistic' theme : I always wondered about this unbelievable memory power of the characters in our typical crime thrillers who while questioned by police is able to recollect very normal incidents happened weeks back with the precision of date and even time. My brain hardly remembers a not-so-important incident happened day before yesterday, unless there is a real need to remember it. The director seemed to have read my mind and made a movie where the the central theme is based on this basic character of human memory, where the brain only retains the things that it feels is relevant and others are ignored unless its followed up with another connected incident. After watching a lot of movies with these characters of 'remarkable memory', one might feel it a little odd when 3-4 persons are not able to remember when exactly an incident happened only a few weeks earlier. But in in a real world this is more close to 'reality' !

(+) A detailed based director : I loved the works of Jeethu Joseph, right from 'Detective'. After an okeyish 'Mummy and me' and 'My boss' he is back, first with 'Memories' and now 'Drishyam'. The flow he maintained in the movie is beautiful, where he starts off with a  lite and pleasant first half to a roller coaster second half. The story, also written by him, is almost flawless and even the minute things are taken care

(+) Lalettan leading the show : What more should I say ? With such a strong script and direction, people will like the movie even if any other actor did the role of 'Georgekutty'. But can anyone else do this role as natually as our 'Complete Actor' did ?... I doubt it. Whether its a naughty romantic husband or a caring father or a tensed family man he was effortlessly living in those scenes. All others like Meena, Shajon, Asha, Siddique pitches in with key roles and good performance. Also a special mention to the two child artists who had a major role and did exceptionally well

(-) A little old-fashioned outlook : One can argue that the 'Georgekutty's' reserved outlook of "Women should be staying at home and should not be  going out" and 'Rani's' fear of "mobile converting you to naked photos" is due to the lack of education those characters have in the movie. But after watching the whole movie I got the feeling that the characters are talking a little bit of director's outlook. And if it is the case, I am a little against ths outlook, as I believe hiding or running away is not the solution for the social issue shown in the movie

Verdict : There are not many movies which is liked almost every one. Watch it not just for Lalettan, but for a refreshing attempt by a director who has a long way to go !

Tail Piece - For the one who already saw the movie (Beware of SPOILERs)
The movie leaves you with a more important question. When a girl's video is taken using hidden camera in a bath room which is later used to black mail her, the family had to do the extreme step which ended in beating the guy to death. Question is what can be done in such a case, especially when the culprit is a big shot (like IG's son here). A tough question to answer. May be in an ideal world following sequence can happen,

1) Girl will tell the boy to go and f##k off and do what ever you want with the video

2) Boy puts the video in youtube, but society instead enjoying the video and harassing the girl, will turn against the boy who defamed an innocent girl

3) Boy will be put behind the bars and girl will be commended for her courageous attitude

Now only question is, how far are we from this 'ideal' world ?

"Punyalan Agarbattis" - An enhanting fun ride !

Let's keep it simple ! 

There are some movies which shakes you up and keeps you spell bound with its sheer magic. On the other hand there are some others where only thing you will remember, or rather regret at the end, will be about your time and money wasted over it. But our Punyalan is neither a jaw dropper nor it will make you regret your decision to watch it. All it gives you is a few hours of lite, humorous ride which will make your every rupee worth !

What stands out ?

A feel good comedy - Comedy is a difficult craft, both in art and in real life. All these double meaning jokes and slap stick comedies are used when you are unable to master this craft. "Punyalan Agarbathis' is a welcome relief in this way. Rather than trying to add some extra funny scenes to create comedy, they try to present each scenes story in a humorous angle as much as possible and this resulted in an engaging, 'never-a-dull-phase' movie

Hail the performers !

The pivotal role of 'Punyaalan Joy' seems to be tailor made for Jayasurya , who is undoubtedly one of the most flexible actors around. After Jayasurya its our "Thuthuru Thuthuruthu" fame Sreejith Ravi that steals the show. He seems to be a born actor who is able to perform in a pretty wide range. In short lets call it a team effort where each and every one gel together and played their little cameos to perfection

Ranjith Sankar does it again !

A good director is the one who can bring the best out of each actors. Ranjith Sankar, a promising director for future, seems to inherit this gift. To elaborate further,may be for the first time I saw our highly 'talented' actor Edavela Babu in a relevant role and believe it or not, even his role looks awesome in the screen. No more proofs needed !

A Hero who is not a 'Punyalan'

I like the role of 'Joy Thakkolkaran' a.k.a 'Punyalan Joy', not because he is a perfect protagonist, but rather because he is more human. He keeps you guessing what is actually in his mind and you never know if he is actually a honest guy with a lot of innovative ideas and vision who wants to make the world better or just a selfish opportunist businessman who just think about himself. In the movie he has an uncanny knack of convincing people and bring them under his spell. What ever image you give him, by the end of the movie 'Joy Thakkolkaran' will surely bring all of us under that magical spell

Area to improve

I got the feeling that there was an attempt to make the ending a little different so as to avoid those cliched climaxes. In the process they seem to have tried too many things towards the end, It was more like there were multiple options to choose in the script and after getting confused on which one to choose they might have taken a bit of every thing. It doesn't affect the movie a lot, but a little tuning in the script towards the second half could have made it a little better

Verdict

Go for it with family and you will be guaranteed a few hours of entertainment !  Don't expect too much beyond that !

Thumps up all the way :) 

"Escape from Uganda" - Movie Review

Prison breaks are not very easy to present in a movie. Mainly because of its predictable ending  and also since a prison escape in reality is supposed to be a near impossible event, the story should present some seemingly impossible scenes in a convincing fashion with the help of some innovative tactics not seen previously or at-least not expected by the viewers. Its tough to get it right !

You might be wondering why I am taking this kind of anticipatory bail on behalf of the "Escape from Uganda" team. Well it spun out from my respect to all the pain and efforts taken by those folks and the bail is needed more than anything to satisfy my conscious before I gave the movie a disappointing  thumps down !!

What I liked in 'Uganda' ?

Bold attempt : A movie solely based on a jail break theme, as far as I know is first of its kind in Malayalam (not forgetting Lalettan's classical "Moonnaam mura" and "Jana priya Nayakan's" pathetic "Love and war"). Hail the makers for taking the risk and trying out some thing different

Rima's performance : Unlike others characters in the movie, Rima as usual, was living as Shika and once again giving her 100%

What I didn't like in 'Uganda' ?

Almost every thing else : You take any jail break/escape movie/series, the first hero is always the 'plan'. It can be revealed before the escape (as in "Prison Break  series) or after the escape  (as in 'Shawshank Redemption') , but either way the highlight of the whole movie is often the method used for escape and the way its explained and executed .. 

But here .....  first of all the plan is vague, add to it an average direction on top of a story/screen play that lacks any sort of imagination and above all a horrible back ground score that makes you seriously wonder if the Music Director was trying out some sound tests which accidentally became part to the movie. In short during the much awaited 'escape from prison' sequence I was also looking for an escape, but out of the theatre

Verdict : If you are expecting thrills of a jail break movie, better avoid this. Get a good version of Shawshank redemption's DVD or get it from torrent and watch it (even for a second time) instead !

Tail piece : Many times after reading reviews where a movie is criticized left right and centre,  I wondered what the reviewer would have done differently. Any ways here is Sam's view on what I would have done to make it better,

SPOILER ALERT : If you still want to see the movie, avoid reading further

1. Reduce Build up phase (which here almost consumes the first half) and use that time in showing a better planning and execution of escape. May be a failed first attempt would be good
2. Take out that totally unwanted 'Suresh Gopi style'  action piece for Parthiepan's  intro and replace it with some thing more cool and simple (some show off with a gun for instance)
3. Take out the romantic song, and instead put a song that focus on their life in Uganda which could help in avoiding many scenes in build up as well as given more intensity on their relations
4. Replace background score to something that slowly increases your heart beat rather than the current one which could create a heart attack instead
5. Advise Mr Vijay Babu to relax a bit and avoid the 'over' part from his acting
6. Avoid the 'DDLJ' style run in the climax. It was seriously funny though :)
7. Refine the script and fix many gaps so that it won't give a feeling to the viewers that some part of reel might have been lost during editing 
8. etc etc

"Thira" - Movie Review

Is 'Thira' a copy of 'Taken' ? Rubbish.. Comparing Liam Neeson with Shobhana or even Dhyan can be called, at the least, atrocious. But that does not mean this movie is not at all inspired from 'Taken' or similar foreign flicks. I could feel the 'Taken' effect at many places in the movie. But the fact that, this movie gives you an escape from those age old style kidnapping movies we see in local flicks, is such a big relief that you will thank the makers if they even get 'inspired'. 

In any case let me reveal what Vineeth and team actually copied, I mean 'got inspired', from 'Taken' and similar Holly wood thrillers, 

1) Editing - The major difference between our Thrillers and some good Hollywood thrillers is not that we have any thing less. But its that we usually have some thing more - one extra song, one extra stunt, one extra emotional side story etc. Its as if there is a rule that if your movie is not at-lest 2.5 hours, its a bad omen. Here the makers have simply cut the sh## and gave us a 2 hour refined thrilling product 

2) A Lady can be a Hero - How many thrillers/action movies we have where a lady is the Hero (not using the word Heroine as it sounds more like 'second fiddle') and also I am not talking about Vijaya Shanthi type movies. Have seen this trend in a lot of Hollywood flicks though. It shows you a tough reality - its not just about the physical strength, but most of the times what matters is your mental strength and resolve 

3) No spoon feeding - Some thing we are so much used to. Take any of the local thrillers, the director will never give the audience the pain of using their 'brain' anywhere in the movie. Every complicated points, even the subtle ones, are explained either by the Hero to the side kick OR else repeated with a short flash back which is shown from a different angle. In this movie you better listen carefully and actually 'think', because the director is not going to stop and spoon feed you with every thing you need to know 

4) Trilogy - I don't even remember a proper trilogy in Malayalam or for that matter Indian movies. Don't even mention about Golmaal or Dhoom.. its such a shame to be called a Trilogy. Even the Ram ji Rao - Mannar Mathayi speakings or Hari har nagars are not actually sequence but made in to a sequence after  the first one succeeded. This one could be the first of its type planned Trilogy at-least for sure in Malayalam. I am sure many are going to follow ('Taken' has got a sequence too ;-) )

There are so many other good things about this movie. Like the performances of lead roles and even others, the good back ground score, cinematography etc 

There is not much bad points, may be except that they could have improved the action sequences. I am ok with shaky originality type stunt, but this is just too shaky and irritating some times. Vineeth, please take care next time :p 

All in all ... A must must watch and not just one time. It surely deserves a second watch !!!

Tail piece : One heartening part of the movie was the use of a transgender in a strong and serious role with out giving much importance to the sex of the person. All I have ever seen in our movies till now is to use them either as a laughing stock/ridiculed type roles or a dull/sympathetic role. Again another welcome change !

"Mumbai Police" - Movie review

The crime investigation movies in Mollywood usually follows a similar pattern right from the hero's personality to the final twists ... It will also be decorated by some predictable cliches ... 'Mumbai Police' has got a lot of plus points like its story, performance, suspense ... but above everything else I simply loved the movie for the bold effort to break some of these boring routine patterns and leave you with a fresh visual treat !!!

+ives
- Story/Direction : A completely 'different' suspense thriller story which is done in a neat, stylish manner. A commendable job by Roshan Andrews and Boby-Sanjay team

- Performance : Police officer role is not the cup of tea for every one. Even our super/mega stars are not their best when it comes to Khakee roles. Prithviraj somehow fits in to the uniform quite effortlessly and renders one of his best recent performances. All other characters rally around him and did justice to their roles ..

- Editing : This is one area which a lot of recent Mollywood flicks lagged back. But in this movie most of the waste (read unwanted songs, action sequences, emotional side stories etc) are trimmed off and movie is made crisp and up to the point

-ives (not much)
- Kunjan's 'oath speech' scene could have been avoided (even it got a applause from theater  )

Tail end : Heard some complaints about people disclosing the suspense of this movie publicly and that affecting the movie's prospects .. but trust me, the final twist (if any) is not the 'only' highlight of the movie .. and if you observe closely enough you can yourself guess the twist even before the interval 

"Hotel California" - Movie review

Don't go to this movie expecting another 'Beautiful' ... its definitely not a classic or a master piece from Anoop/Jayasurya team. But at the same time, at no point it is trying to become one either. The movie is claiming as a comedy entertrainer and in that area it scores full marks 

+ives 
- Comedy : a lot of good comedy sequences that makes you laugh loud 
- Style : Stylish direction/camera work
- Acting : good performances from same team as Trivandrum Lodge + Comedy stars 

-ives 
- Editing : this is ideally a 2 hour movie which is dragged to an extra 30 mins. Flesh out that extra weight and the movie might have got its perfect pace

Verdict : Go for it if you are looking for a 2.5 hours time pass. If you expect more u would probably be disappointed 

Tail Piece : The movie is rated as (A). Agreed that there are enough new generation style sex comedies in the movie (not even close to the classic 'Trivandrum Lodge' though) , but its hard to believe that in todays age if these level of comedies are actually considered as Adult only. May be sensor board folks need to grow up a little