S. R. Praveen

It may be one of cinema’s greatest tricks that it can twist one’s line of thinking about a person or an incident just with the perspective it chooses to present, the framing, editing choices, or the background score used. Reading a basic news report on the incident of crime at the centre of Shahad’s Pradhama Drishtiya Kuttakkar might make one assume a particular stand on the culprits, knowing the long history of this kind of crime in the country and the stories that can be made up to save them. However, the film frames the incident, the events leading up to it, its aftermath and the people involved in such a way that not once do we wish for the culprits to be caught and punished. Of course, we have Jeethu Joseph’s Drishyam (2013), in which we all collectively stood with those who committed the crime. The film also has quite a few parallels with Drishyam, but this one has very different concerns and approach to the crime.

At times, one or two sequences are all it takes to turn an otherwise unremarkable movie into a worthwhile experience. A memorable shot or a standout performance can almost make one forget the rest of its failings. The scene involving Urvashi’s titular character and a doctor in Safar Sanal’s Aasha could have become a run-of-the-mill emotional sequence of a mother realising that something dreadful might have happened to her daughter. But Urvashi lends an uncommon depth to the scene, with a performance that is not just a portrayal of a mother’s anguish over the immediate event, but also her own already frayed mental state. The way she lets stuttered words escape her lips, the voice modulation she employs, or even the way she fails to steadily hold a pen to sign a document, all come together to paint a picture of the ocean of worry within her.

Of all the things Justin (Nivin Pauly) and Ashley (Mamitha Baiju), the protagonists of Bethlehem Kudumba Unit, bond over, music is perhaps what triggers the initial spark. He dusts off an old cassette player, and she brings in her box of cherished old audio cassettes, which she refused to leave behind when her strict mother asked her to while shifting houses. She is surprised that he has heard of the alternative rock band ‘Breeders’, her favourite. It changes her serious, old-man image of him. When Ashley lands in this neighbourhood with her family, reluctant to leave her small home in the village, she is a little circumspect and even melancholic, as one of the characters puts it. Soon, she gels in, as if she has found her tribe. Girish AD does something similar with the audience. He places us firmly amid this bunch of closely-knit characters, all with relatable qualities, quirks and failings, making us feel as if we are among a group of our own friends. It also feels as if everyone here, except Ashley and her family have known each other all their lives, for such is the easy camaraderie and the sharpness of the repartees.

When a star plays a notorious smuggler, there has to be a compelling reason for him to become one. Vysakh’s Khalifa provides Aamir Ali (Prithviraj Sukumaran) a reason with some emotional pull. A one-liner for the film could be this: ‘a heart-rending story of a man who becomes a master gold smuggler to repay his honest father’s debts caused by corrupt politicians’. However, the narrative lacks the intended emotional pull or the expected thrills. The similarity to umpteen films released in the 1980s and 90s adds to the movie’s dullness.

Rarely have we seen an actor’s name attached to the film’s name. The CBFC certificate for Thudakkam, directed by Judy Anthany Joseph, displays the film’s name as ‘Vismaya Mohanlal’s Thudakkam’, heralding the debut film of actor Mohanlal’s daughter. Mohanlal appears in a cameo role as a martial arts master and tells Meenu (Vismaya) that this is her ‘Thudakkam’ (beginning) and to “make your father proud”. Though Sai Kumar plays her father in the film, what is implied is not lost on anyone.

Just like Vicky (Neeraj Madhav), the protagonist of the sci-fi comedy Pluto, who befriends an alien, the movie also does not know what exactly to do with the alien character. This has to do with the nature of the alien. In an attempt to break alien stereotypes, Pluto does not have superpowers, except for two skills which are only sparingly used. So, there are only so many exciting things left for the alien to do. Probably due to tight budgets, the alien also lacks elaborate design elements. Just a spandex suit with a human face (Althaf Salim) does the job. By extension, this would mean that the alien would do familiar Althaf Salim things. One interesting touch that screenwriter Niyas Muhammed and filmmaker Adithyan Chandrasekhar bring to the table is the similarity between Vicky and Pluto, the alien. Both are considered losers in life. Hence, Pluto cannot be of particular use to Vicky, who is down and out after failing with one ill-advised business idea after another.

One can sense self-indulgence in the air when a police officer-turned-successful screenwriter writes a film about a policeman struggling to enter the film industry as a scriptwriter, incorporating the uncommon tales that he encountered in service. Shahi Kabir, one of the early players in this peculiar phenomenon of police officers-turned-screenwriters that has swept Malayalam cinema, does not serve a straight-up procedural this time around in Unmadham.

Varavu is the kind of film that gives one the feeling that the action sequences were probably planned out first, with an excuse of a storyline added later. Well, there should be a reason for the fights. Can there be a better reason than a good old revenge story of 1990s vintage set in the high ranges? The film is too eager to showcase its fights that by the time we get to know even the name of the protagonist, Paulson (Joju George), two long fight sequences are over.