When we wrote the preview of Thuruppugulan we had commented about Mammooty doing outrageous roles and films and those movies becoming hits. Apparently in Thuruppugulan, Mammootty is continuing on where he had left off in Rajamanickyam. Gaudy costumes, attempts at dancing and a new found flair for comedy. Trade reports say that movie can recover cost in three weeks if the audience interest does not dip suddenly. School vacation and festival season might ensure financial success of this movie and Mamootty might continue his dream run.
Paresh Palicha of rediff.com feels sad that actor of Mammooty’s stature has to stoop low to prove that he can handle comedy.
The first words that appear on screen — as the credits for Mammootty’s Vishu release Thuruppu Gulan begin rolling — are ‘Thank God’. It is good to acknowledge the Almighty, but it makes one wonder whether the makers of this film were so sceptical about their product that they had to thank God it saw the light of day in this supposedly bad phase for the industry. Or was it because superstar Mammootty had agreed to do a role any ordinary actor would have squirmed at?
Thuruppu Gulan isn’t an outright bad film. But you tend to feel sad when someone of Mammootty’s stature has to stoop so low just to prove he can handle comedy well.
As expected, Mammootty is here again as the super human hyperactive maverick, in all colors, fighting, throwing his legs to two songs, trying to be humorous and even at times mimicking himself. The actor seems to have forgotten his age and even his baseful voice that every portion of the film is dubbed to feel like a farce drama.
Even though the basic plot seems to be promising, the film has lost the tempo in the second half, cluttered to become a star show
Script by Sibi.K.Thomas – Uday Krissna lacks luster and is even presented with less believability. But the festival moods all through and added masalas will definitely bring in good numbers of takers which is evident before all release centers now. All together, it is an out and out Mammmootty film – with the rest of the casts ranging from Sneha, Innocent, Kalashala Baabu, Jagathy Suraj, Harishree Ashokan and Cochin Haneef having not much to offer. The film’s music department by Alex Paul and Kaithapram is without any flavor delivering two un-hummable songs in the irascible lyrics.
(Picture courtesy : nowrunning.com)
Related posts:
Happened to see some scenes from TGulan on TV.
It was extremely sad to see the great actor, do some buffoneery scripted by the kings of crude slapstick.While it may help him to keep his market hot, it wont do any good to him as an actor.
Its after seeing movies like this, one wonders where Malayalam cinema is heading to. On one hand, we have refreshing movies like Kazcha, Achan urangaatha veedu, Udyanaanu Thaaram and Thanmathra and as if to negate the effect, we have such crass comedies.
Johnny Antony, through his first 3 movies has proved that he knows best to make such Tom-and-Jerry movies. Now that he has established himself, he should be trying to emulate Lal-Jose, Blessy or Roshan Andrews.
Mammotty’s current comedy trend bears similarity to the spate of Mohan Lal “meesha pirikkal” movies, which finally resulted in his downfall as an actor.
One is reminded of the saying, “Athikam Ayaaal Amirthum Visham”
[...] Unni: Happened to see some scenes from TGulan on TV. It was extremely sad to see the great actor, do some buffoneery… [...]
I have’nt seen “thuruppugulaan” but i could see “rajamaanikkam”. The people who wrote “thuruppuguan” as a bad step from mammotty, would also have told the same about “rajamaanikkam” too.. enough courage and confidence is required to act in such films.. the person who is telling “rajamaanikkam” as a “komalitharam” from mammotty, does not deserve to be commented.. actually mammotty is a good actor which he had already been proved many times.. a good actor should experiment accepting different roles.. but carefully.. that’s what mammotty is doing.. there is nothing harmful in it.. after all he is a good actor and also acting for money also… so he also should keep an eye on the trend too.. if he only accept good role like the one in “ponthan maada”, i bet mallus will leave him back and in 2 yrs mamootty will become a begger.. so what i am saying is, he is a good business man also.. acting is also business for him..
[...] Still all these actors have limitations and we will alyways need playback singers. While choosing the playback singer, one important factor should be how well their voices match. As an example let us look at Vineeth Srinivasan who has ventured into singing big time. In Udayananu Tharam, he sang a song for his father and it was excellent since both of them have the same voice and we felt as if Srinivasan himself was singing that song. Both Mammotty and Mohanlal do not have the same voice as Srinivasan and we were amused to see Vineeth singing playback for both of them, in Thuruppugulan and Rasathanthram. Similarly it was Afsal who sang for Mammotty in Rajamanikyam. Recently we saw the movie Sanmasullavarku Samadhanam (again) and it was Yesudas who sang Pavizhamalli for Srinivasan. [...]
[...] Not to be left behind in the colorful-comedy-action-caper bandwagon, Mammooty soon joined the party with Thommanum Makkalum. That venture tasted success and Mammootty followed it up with Rajamanickyam. This movie created history when it became the biggest grosser in Malayalam movie history. The already emboldened Mammootty, with a string of hits behind him, decided to follow it up with Thuruppugulan. Director was none other than Johny Antony, who pioneered the cartoon movie idea. This movie is too finding success at the box office and with the success it’s being proved that it doesn’t take much to satisfy the so called “intelligent” Malayalee’s taste and superstars are ready to lower their standards. [...]
[...] Now to the second category – This actor was in the third category till recently. However his recent performances have seen him move up a few rungs in terms of dancing – Mammotty is that actor who believes in the axiom “better late than never” when it comes to dancing. Previously his attempts to dance – if thats the word we can use – were disasters. If we think about Mammotty and dancing, the frames that immediately came to our mind were the “Nyaan oru pattu padam” song from Megham , “Dekho Bhayya Dekho Internet-in Magic” song from Indraprastham and “Ponne Ponnambili” song from Harikrishnans. Having confessed in interviews that he is not the best dancer around, because he had two left feet, he decided to give it one last shot -it started with Thommanum Makkalum, continued with Rajamanikkyam and reached its peak with ThuruppuGulan. (He even remarks in Gulan that he aspires to be a Kalathilakam like Navya Nair!!). And to be fair to him he has done a decent job even though some of his steps in the “Pidiyana” song resemble a PT drill!! [...]
[...] Mammootty’s unstoppable juggernaut seemed to slow down a bit with lukewarm response for Prajapathi, but the star provided a big hit with Thurppugulan and a decent show at box office with Balram Vs.Taradas. None of these three movies provided anything that Mammooty could be proud of. The star seems to have made a conscious decision to stay away from these mindless movies for a while and have signed up for a bunch of family or performance oriented movies. [...]