"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