Christian Brothers is the most awesomest movie we have ever seen this year. The primary goal of the script writers was not to tax the brain of Malayali viewer and provide VFM (Value for Money). It is filmed in exactly the same house as Twenty-Twenty, with most people of that movie playing exactly the same role. Usually in such movies, the villain is not revealed in the beginning. But here it is revealed in the beginning itself. This helps the brain. It also helps if you have Alzheimer’s.

Various factors add to the coolness of the movie. It has people who wear cooling glass inside the house. Then it uses sophisticated “computer” technology and prints “Tracking Signal” on top of Google Maps when Mohanlal’s henchmen try to track phone calls. It has a song with lyrics “moham kondal innu ethu pennum oru poochaye pole”. It has henchmen standing around the same swimming pool in which Prithviraj and Jayasurya swam in Robinhood discussing life-problems, like should we kill him ourselves or should we get pavanai? It has Babu Antony with a black towel tied around his head (hint: he is a commando).

The awesomeness comes in installments.  Mohanlal plays a Christie, an underworld connected Malayali from Mumbai who has come to help Kerala Police and the Home Minister. If this does not bring goose bumps, we don’t know what will. Also, as we all know anyone who ends up in Mumbai becomes an underworld don. It is called Newton’s fourth law. One day you are simply walking along Juhu Beach and boom, you become a Don. Then police is after you and every unshaven youth calls you “Bhai”. It happened to Mohanlal two decades in Abhimanyu. It happened once again now. You would think he would have learned by now.

The next peak comes with the arrival of Suresh Gopi as goonda. It kind of breaks the rhythm. You are so used to seeing him police uniform, you suddenly feel as if the world has started spinning in the opposite direction. Before we sink into despair, the gooda turns out to be an IPS officer – you know the Mussorie kind. He also has a name like Antony Punnokadan or Joseph Vadakkan or something of that sort. Once he arrives, he confronts Mohanlal and they throw dialogue at each other like those arrows from Ramayana serial. Awesomeness oozes so much that we need some buckets to collect it.

Christie saves the home minister’s daughter (Kavya Madhavan) from the always destined to fail henchmen-rape, but he ends up in jail due to a family mess up. You know son innocent, father does not believe it, some bad apples in family theme. By 90 minutes, the number of people who want to kill or eliminate Christie looks like a Malayali queue in front of the liquor store – Sharath Kumar, Biju Menon, Joseph Vadakkan, Sai Kumar.

Once someone is in jail, there is a Newton’s law which immediately applies.  As Newton wrote in Principia Mathematica, every jailed person shall be presented in court and every opposing force will try to prevent this from happening. This movies too has one such scene where all the alpha males get to show their alpha maleness. Imagine Sharath Kumar, Suresh Gopi, Mohanlal, Babu Antony all with guns. It is 20 minutes of pure testosterone. Then there is also the scene when the son is not invited to his sister’s marriage, but he shows up anyway fooling the entire police force. Finally, guess what, everything was based on a misunderstanding. These silly people.

Then Suresh Gopi gets to dump dialogue let and right. At men, women, ministers, and Salim Kumar. Only children are spared. But once his “Ammachi” calls, he becomes such a docile creature that if you pour some milk in a saucer he will stand on all fours and drunk it and wipe his lips with his tongue. He also blushes when his mom talks of marriage. Maybe it is because he is violating some marriage laws, but it is cho-chweet.

But we are not trashing the movie because it is a pure commercial film and we don’t get it. There is one classic scene where Mohanlal is holding Kavya Madhavan and Co as hostage. She wants to make a phone call to Dileep, but Mohanlal the hostage taker does not allow it. So she rants, saying he does not know what love is. This is a big mistake for if anyone knows what love is it has to be the Mumbai based underworld connected Malayali. Mohanlal switches to flashback and thinks of his love Laxmi Rai in saree drenched by the Kerala monsoon. At the end of this scene, he hands over the phone to Kavya Madhavan. So touching.

There is another scene where Mohanlal shows up with a gun during Kavya Madhavan’s engagement ceremony. The number of Malayali actors/sq ft is quite high in the scene and still he manages to get his way. The dialogue that got thrown around in that scene would have killed most people, but the alpha males survive for the climax scene. In the final climax, where everyone is beating up everyone else and furniture is being abused without mercy and bullets are flying around like mosquitoes in a typical evening, you really don’t care if Sharath Kumar is speaking Hebrew. All you want to know is only one thing. Will the three heroes shoot the villain together or will Christie alone shoot him with the two guns in either hand. We won’t tell you what happened. You should pay decent money and watch it yourself.

You may ask, other than classy lines like “Pakistanil kayari Bible vayikkaruthu” is there something worthwhile in this movie. It is a fun movie and it is fast paced. Before you start guessing which previous movie of Sibi K Thomas and Udaykrishna had this scene, the editor moves to the next scene. It repeats again. Then only a person of Joshiey’s calibre could have pulled this ensemble cast movie with sufficient dignity. Think how this movie would have been if Sandhya Mohan or Bhadran had directed this. Or think if Joshi had directed this instead of Joshiey. We also admire the talents of Mohanlal, Dileep and Suresh Gopi for who can make any scene look interesting. Yes, we have seen them do the same thing a zillion times, but still.

Joshiy and his team have reworked their ‘Twenty-20’ template to make a half baked thriller called ‘Christian Brothers’. There are foreign location songs, superstar Mohanlal in a larger than life role, father-son sentiments, Dileep’s comic acts,  twists which come in every thirty minutes,  Suraj Venjaramooodu’s bufoonery, an interval punch similar to what we saw in Twenty Twenty, fight between the superstars(Mohanlal,Suresh Gopi), a little bit of skin show(in the form of Lakshmi Rai) and everything else needed for a commercial potboiler;  yet the movie fails to engage you completely. Christian Brothers will be lapped up by the fans of the Superstar for sure and in all probabilities will become a big hit. But for an average movie goer it is just an average fare.

Story and the Script: Scripting for a multistarrer is no child’s play. Uday Krishna and Sibi K Thomas have come up with a no brainer script this time too. ‘Christian Brothers’ is marginally better than their own ‘Pokkiri Brothers’ but is not as entertaining or racy as Twenty Twenty. The loop holes in the script are far too many.

Christy (Mohanlal) is an informer to the Mumbai Police. Meenakshi, the daughter(Kavya Madhavan) of the Kerala Home minister gets kidnapped and Christy is called for help(remember Sagar Alias Jacky).  Christy happens to be the brother of Jojiy(Dileep) who is madly in love with Meenakshy.  Some unexpected twists later, Meenakshi’s kidnapper George Kutty(Suresh Krishna) gets killed and Christy is the suspect.  Enter Joseph Vadakkan, the super cop played by…you guessed it right!  There are also a number of subplots involving Laksmi Rai,  Lakshmi Gopala Swamy,  Jagathy Sreekumar et al. Biju Menon, Vijaya Raghavan, Jayan play the baddies while Saikumar(!) plays Mohanlal’s father.  As in Pokkiri Raja there is a father-son sentiments track here too. Sarath Kumar as Andrews has a very small role and features in two important sequences.

The main problem with the movie lies in its script itself.It is a remixed version of ‘Twenty-20’ and ‘Pokkiri Raja’. The first half of the movie (in which issues like land grabbing have been delt with topically)is a bit confusing and also drags considerably.  The much hyped fight between Joseph aka Thomichan(Suresh Gopi) and Christy fails to make any impact. Those who have seen twenty twenty would easily predict the interval twist involving the Underworld don Andrews and Christy. The father character of V.Mapilla(Saikumar)is just a xerox copy of Nedumudi Venu’s character in Pokkiri Raja.

Direction:  Joshiy has done a decent job at handling all these big stars efficiently.  CB is the kind of movie which relies heavily on it’s star power rather than a credible story line to get itself worked at the box-office and the veteran director has made full use of his huge star cast here.

Cast and Performances:  CB is Mohanlal’s show all the way and his character, Christy will be a treat for his fans. Though the movie has nothing challenging for an actor of his caliber, it will give him the much needed hit. Suresh Gopi repeats his daredevil cop act for the nth time and honestly I didn’t like his character much. Dileep plays his usual comic acts with elan,  manages to raise a few laughs whenever he is on screen. Though Sarath Kumar has a very small role he looks aged and tired on screen.  The leading ladies have nothing much to do.  In big budget movies like this, the female characters are casted just for the eye candy bit. Even no such luck here.  All the heroines except Kaniha looked plumb and totally out of shape.  Suraj Venjaramoodu manages to irritate the audience with his stale jokes.

Editing:  Ranjan Abraham hasn’t resorted to fast cuts and other gimmicks for cheap thrills. But at almost 3 hours, Christian Brothers  is way too long.  Wonder why 1)Suraj Venjaramoodu 2)the ’sayyavve’ song picturised on Mohanlal and Laksmi Rai 3)the character played by Harisree Asokan 4)even Lakshmi Rai were included in the film.  A lot of scenes in the first half of the movie were really unwanted and the lag was overtly felt at places.

Cinematography: Anil Nair has done a shoddy work with his camera. The movie suffers due to excessive lighting. Lakshmi Rai hasn’t looked so bad on screen before! Extreme close up shots were also there in abundance. Every pore and crease on her face were clearly visible, thanks to the mediocre camera man.  Another instance in which Anil Nair’s camera plays the spoil sport is the London scene in which Dileep is talking to Kavya through phone.  The whole scene is lit up in such a way that even a ten year old can spot the thick layers of make up used on Dileep’s face.

Songs and BGM: Deepak Dev hasn’t disappointed much.The songs are hummable especially the Moham Kondal track. The picturisation of the other two tracks Karthave and Sayyave are lousy, to say the least.  While the Karthave song has a  Maine Pyar Kiya (CID Moosa)/ Kavilinayil(Vandanam) hang over to it,the  Sayyave track suffers due to the unnecessary skin show by Laksmi Rai. Both Lakshmi Rai and Kavya Madhavan doesn’t look good and are overweight. The re-recording reminded of Twenty -20.

Verdict:  Christian Brothers will be loved by the fans of Mohanlal,Dileep and Suresh Gopi. For others its only a watchable fare. CB is no Twenty Twenty.Though it tries too hard to be one, it only ends up as a pale imitation. Rating-5/10

Reviewed by nikhimenon@gmail.com,nikhimenon.blogspot.com

S N Swamy and K Madhu enthralled us with the CBI series of movies, each of which progressively declined in quality. It reached a point when the parody became more entertaining than the original movie. So when S N Swamy and K Madhu made another movie and it sank without a trace, we were curious to see why it failed.

The movie is set in a picture perfect village, which has rivers, canals and greenery all around. It is one of those villages where Mohanlal would sing “Manja Kiliyude Moolipaatunde” and Prem Nazir would sing “Suprabhatam”. According to Kerala Film Script Act 23/34, if there is a village, there has to be two warring factions and an elephant has to be involved. Check.

The movie starts with an episode involving the local thief Kesu (Riyaz Khan) who provides the necessary diversion. At this point pretty much even the elephant knows that he is just a diversion and a technique to advance the script forward. No worries.

The police station is run by Jayaram 1 with constables Harisri Asokan and Indrans who perform comedy so intensively that no one is surprised when Kesu jailbreaks. To quantify their acting even better let us say that they make Suraj Venjaramoodu look like a decent comedian.

One day, a girl is killed and Jayram 1 starts investigating when Jayaram 2 arrives as a goonda. But it turns out that he is not a goonda, but from Crime Branch. That turns out to be the cue for Rajamani to blare the CBI BGM.

There are some beautiful scenes which have to be mentioned to explain the quality of this movie. There is a scene where the cop Jayaram is on night duty monitoring vehicles. Then he spots something and looks carefully. He sees a man walking in bright daylight. So he takes a torch and chases the person and the scene turns dark again. In another scene Jayaram is sitting in the police station when he hears his sister screaming in their home. So he runs and reaches the home in time to watch the thief run away.

The production values should also be mentioned. There is a scene where Jayaram 2 decides to lower himself into a canyon using a crane. The scene is probably 10 minutes long, with blaring bgm, filmed with the same quality of a home made birthday video.

Finally in the climax when the culprit is reveleaed it seemed as if S N Swamy did an inky-pinky-ponky on the characters and randomly picked one. It just fails to resonate.

This is a movie which was made three decades late. If it was made in another time and place, it would have been a super hit.

After 28 movies, the trade circles think that Prithviraj can be a solo hero. When Classmates was a super hit, it was said that it was not a single hero movie. When his roles in Vargam and Vasthavam were said to be good, it was suggested that he cannot do comedy. Now that Chocolate is a big hit, new goal posts have to be found or the existing ones have to be shifted for higher excellence, like he cannot speak Arabic very well or he has not danced in the streets of New Zealand with Kavya Madhavan.

Such opportunities will be abound when Prithviraj’s new movie gets released in December.

Prithviraj plays Josekutty of Palakunnel family, who despite being a graduate, takes up the job of an auto driver, in order to support his family, which is suffering from a financial crisis. Kind-hearted Josekutty has a good friend circle too–Manmadhan, Chellappan and Prasanth. Once, when he happens to find a one-and-half-year-old child on the streets, he decides to adopt and bring up the child. Since that moment, he takes the child wherever he goes, providing him all needed care.[Prithviraj's Kangaroo set to release in Christmas ]

The movie is directed by Raj Babu who is known for the Dileep action-thriller Chess which turned out to be a boring  action-thriller. Since this Kangaroo is being marketed as a comedy movie, we are not sure, if it will turn out to be a boring comedy movie. That depends on the talents of J. Pallassery who is not known for comedies. Also one of the last movies Pallassery scripted, Panthayakozhi, turned out to be anything but a fighting rooster.

In December, this movie, which also stars Kavya Madhavan and Jayasurya is going face tough competition from both M&M’s and Dileep’s Romeo. Right now the question facing most vc readers is: Is Dileep 10% of Prithviraj or is Prithviraj 10% of Dileep. The answers to those questions can be found before the New Year.

Reviewers have come up with varied opinions, which is not a good sign for long sustainability of the movie in theatres. Looking at Ranjit’s recent track record, he will have to go back to drawing board or get his brain rewired.

IndiaGlitz, didn’t copy from Movie Mazaa‘s review this time.

But certainly the film can be passed off as yet another also-ran film. The light hearted plot has seemingly endless stream of gags and stressful jokes that pad the movie up and down and sometimes, slightly take away from the parts that work. Post interval, the film gets quite emotional and heavy. It’s here that the film tends to drag a bit. If you dig silly stuff, they’re here, but they’re an unworthy compliment to a flick that was meant to be carefully shot fun ride, which at least offers a difference in story lines.

The story is largely believable but goes ridiculous in many places like a world-famous percussion artist running after many, to get a song tuned and the introduction scene of Syedapet Giri, which we had seen umpteen times before. We can very well anticipate the ending, we know what’s going to happen even before it does. And even when it does, Renjith, with his huge experience in scripting, still could have made it better. But, most likely, you will pardon the director for these disregards because this is an entertaining film and is slickly constructed with a hip soundtrack by Vidyasagar and good art direction by Sunil.

tvmtalkies says:

Good:
1. Add Chandrolsavam to Hallo, add a few more jokes and a few tit-bits here and there, drain out any storyline that would have crept in – You Rock n’ Roll. And the movie entertains full two and a half hours.

2. Mohanlal plays Mohanlal, rather than playing a disaster like AliBhai. His liberal values and monologues, classic dialogues, jokes. Some of us can watch Mohanlal for hours, when he is at his easy going self, like in the first half of Chandrolsavam. Rock n Roll provides Mohanlal VSOP.

Sify.com’s review says:

The film affirms the fact that the superstar driven Malayalam movies of today have hardly any script. It is just rehashing the same old stories, the stars larger-than-life image and clich?d situations over and over again. All the talented lead players cannot prop up the dilapidated screen play and maintain a balance in the face of over-the-top direction.

Mohanlal looks tired and ridiculous in outfits and a get-up that do not suit him and hams to the hilt! Lakshmi Rai looks beautiful, but finds it difficult to emote. It’s sad to see an ensemble cast of some of the finest actors in Malayalam- Jagathy, Mukesh, Manoj.K.Jayan, Siddique, Rahman, Asokhan, Sooraj and Lal reduced to nothingness. There is no real catchy tune from Vidyasagar in a film based on music industry, except the number O Mama Chandra mama

Thatsmalayalam was brutal in it’s analysis.

And Rediff.com’s review had some analysis for a change.

The director seems to be at a loss to create a story around these characters. So, he weaves a lame love story around Chandramouli. But we are told in the beginning that this fellow does not believe in love. He argues that there is only the physical need in man and woman, and that is misinterpreted as love (doesn’t this remind us of Prof Nathan of Ore Kadal?).

So, it becomes a big deal when he feels infatuated by the new singer Daya Sreenivasan (Lekshmi Rai) whose song he has given beats to. He employs techniques of a college student to win her over, which looks utterly stupid (a lesser word won’t do) considering that he can philosophise on happy matrimony to his friend Isaac and his wife. And, above all he has had experiences with women all around the world.

Performance-wise Mohanlal tries very hard to rise above the script, which is in tatters, but beyond a point, he fails amuse us. Whether it is the philosophical hyperbole or downright buffoonery; there is sincerity in his effort.

Who is more desperate for a hit? Mohanlal or Renjith? That is a matter of debate. With the help of movies like Chandrolsavam, Prajapathi,Nasrani, Alibhai and Paradesi, this duo have made crores of rupees disappear. After involving in three movies with Mammootty (Prajapathy, Kaiyoppu, Nasrani), Renjith tries his luck with Mohanlal in this movie.

Ranjit’s musical entertainer Rock & Roll is ready for release on November 15. The film features Mohanlal as a drummer in a musical troupe consisting of Mukesh, Manoj.K.Jayan, Jagathy, Harisri Asokhan, Suraj Venjaranmoodu, Siddique and Lal. Lakshmi Rai is the heroine and Shwetha Menon makes a cameo appearance.

According to writer and director Ranjit : “Rock & Roll is an out and out musical entertainer set in Chennai milieu with the background of a recording studio and the world of music directors. It’s a fun movie with Mohanlal leading the pack of merry men.”[Ready to Roll]

We’re wary of the phrase -”Mohanlal leading the pack of merry men”, just like Chotta Mumbai. Like environmentalists, Renjith’s been recycling stories for a while now. Of course, Kaiyoppu was an exception. But then, if the movie lives up to Ranjit’s words, then Ranjit and Mohanlal can heave a sigh of relief, else Mohanlal and Renjith will have to spend the next few months watching Azhagiya Thamiz Magan and Chocolate running to packed houses.

Photo courtesy: Sunday Kaumudi 

Vinayan says “I saw Hulk” with this new movie Athisayan. Reviewers unanimously agree that the niche audience the movie is aimed at, namely children, would love the movie.
Sify’s take:

Vinayan has cooked up another unbelievable yarn with Athisayan which defies all logic and is a hotch potch of various films. At best it provides some fun for the kids, however the graphic work in the film is tacky, making it difficult to watch the long drawn out climax scenes.

Maya (Kavya Madhavan) is an investigative journalist working for New India television. She is also a social crusader and a runs an orphanage for destitute children at her home. Her boss Radha Ramanan (Mukesh) has an eye on her, but she is fiercely independent. Her neighbour is a renowned international scientist Sekharan (Jackie Shroff) who is working on the theory of invincibility. One of the mischievous boys in her orphanage Devan (Master Devan) drinks a green potion made by Sekharan, and he becomes invisible!