Early in the movie, there is a scene where Amma (KPAC Lalitha) gets a letter by post. She wonders as to who is writing a letter to her now. She along with her children Meera (Karthika), Monu (Yadukrishnan) and another daughter are living as tenants in a house in the city. Is it from her brother Damodaran, she wonders? Turns out the letter was from the house owner Gopalakrishna Panicker (Mohanlal), who wants them to vacate the house.

Gopalakrishna Panicker has his set of problems. Deep in debt after the marriage of his sister, he tried various businesses. They all flopped. The only way to prevent his house from being taken over was to sell the house is father had built in the city and pay off the loans. He had not met the tenants since they write letters to him asking him to repair their house. With the idea of evacuating the tenents, he comes to the city.

In his first encounter he gets angry and insults and threatens them. He also teaches them about the various nuances of the Rent Control Act of 1985. Still Karthika and co refuse to leave. Next time he comes and tries to be a nice guy. That too does not work. Then he torments Meera in her office and the street and gets beaten up by various people in the bus. Then he meets Sub Inspector Rajendran (Srinivasan) who was his classmate in the village.

Rajendran portrays the image of a rough and tough no-nonsense police inspector who gets all worked up when he hears someone has insulted the police department. Panicker triggers him with some false stories and he goes and threatens Amma when no one is there. An angry Meera goes to the Police Station and tells the truth and Rajendran falls for her.

Having run out of options, Panicker charms his way into their house and stays in one room and specializes in tormeting them. Frustrated, Meera writes a letter to her uncle Damodaran (Thilakan), requesting help. Damodaran in a Pavanai (Nadodikaatu) type role comes as the chief of the Bombay underworld, warns Panicker and even gets a goonda to beat him. Panicker beats both of them and restarts troubling them.

When he knows that Rajendran is in love with Meera, Panicker agrees to be the marriage broker so that he can get her out of the house. That’s when the story turns mushy. Is Panicker able to get them out of his house? What happens to his family home? Will Rajendran marry Meera? If you have an IQ greater than 10, you can guess the answers to these questions.

In one scene Rajendran and Panicker come in the police jeep to threaten Lalitha. While the jeep is running and is near the house, Rajendran jumps out of the jeep and propelled by the speed, runs alongside the jeep with his lathi raised. “Where are the people who insulted the police department?” he yells. When Lalitha comes out, he tries to beat her, but then Panicker grabs his lati and Rajendran without the lathi falls on Lalitha. Besides slapstick comedy scenes like these, there are many subtle ones as well.

When Damodaran or Damodarji as he is called comes for the first time, he blocks Panicker as he is going out. Panicker knew that this guy was dangerous and he is frightened. As Damodarji looks at him, the handbag in his armpits, slowly slides down. There is lot of humor in the dialogues as well. Rajendran’s description of himself starting with the question, “Have you heard of Kottapully Sulaiman?” and statements like “Truth and justice are my two wives” had us laughing.

Sathyan Antikkad has extracted excellent performances from Mohanlal, Lalitha, Karthika and Thilakan. As usual the scene stealer is Srinivasan with his over the top portrayal of S I Rajendran.Lalitha’s mom, who is afraid of everyone, Mamu Koya’s neighbour Ummer, who disappears at the first sign of trouble, Karthika’s younger brother Yadukrishnan who tried various techniques to frighten Panicker are memorable. The only boring character is Soman (who plays Srinivasan’s uncle) as he looks and acts exactly the same way he has done in all his previous movies. Fortunately he has only a few scenes.

Based on the story by Sathyan Anthikkad the screenplay and dialogues are by Srnivasan and this is one of his best works. With this mastery of humor and character creation, he created some memorable characters in this movie. The most funny scene is the one where Inspector Rajendran invites Meera to the update the status. When Meera says she is in a hurry, he goes and hold a tree, looks towards the horizon and starts singing, Pavizha Malli. He walks forwards and backwards, runs his hands over the swing, and weaves between trees.

There is one more song (lyrics: Mullanezhi, Music: Jerry Amaldev), in which Panicker goes around town troubling Meera. The song, Kanninu Ponkani, Kaathinu Then kani, is another melodious song with much better lyrics and music that other songs of such genre (hero-tormenting-heroine).

This movie was in our list of Top 10 movies and is still worth watching.

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