Varavu

If Shaji Kailas began his career today, he would wrestle with the idea of starting out as a celebrated food vlogger. Even when he’s setting up major action sequences, he seems obsessed with the idea of staging confrontation around food. Speaking strictly of its novelty, this could be something as inane as framing an intro shot while placing a hot, steaming glass of lemon tea at the foreground. But the ideas that cracked me up in his new film were the subtle innuendos he’s packed in to trigger a conflict. Take the instance of five masked assassins walking into a small restaurant with the intention of creating trouble. One of them looks at the waitress and shadily asks if she will give him some “buns and milk”. It’s meant to sound as off as it does, but the dialogue delivery of the actor makes it sound crass. When the film’s hero, Paulson (Joju George trying his best), walks in upon hearing this, he sends the bad guy flying with a kick to his groin. As he flies across the screen, we see two eggs flying with the same velocity, landing at the centre of a frying pan. A second later, Paulson slashes a sword across another bad guy and instead of zooming in on the damage this causes, we cut to a shot of a banana that gets sliced into two.

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.