August 1 , which got released in the late eighties was based on 1971 novel, The Day of the Jackal, by English writer Frederick Forsyth. 23 years later, S.N.Swamy and M.Mani(the producer of August 1)have come up with it’s sequel tilted August 15.Mammooty reprises the role of Perumal, (who was the DySP, CB-CID 23 years ago)in this sequel directed by Shaji Kailas.

The plot and the characters:V.G(Nedumudi Venu) is the C.M. of the state of Kerala. He is in loggerheads with the secretary of the party(Saikumar). The lottery,Sand mafias want the C.M. to be killed. So they hire an Assassin(Siddique)to get their job done. What happens next is what August 15 is all about.

Mammootty as Perumal: Mammootty is Perumal,the CBCID . Perumal looks good, rides a Royal Enfield, attends calls in his mobile,walks in slo-mo with a peculiar gait and a loud BGM playing behind, teases his superior officer Peter Zachariah(played brilliantly by Lalu Alex)to kill his time, plays with Photoshop and even cracks funny dialogues like this through his mobile phone(which rings with a ‘Nokia tune’ all the time!)

Perumal: (to someone called Ammini George)-Hello, Ormayundo ee mukham?.
Ammini: Pinnillathe,Engane marakkananu!

Siddique as the killer: Siddique,who is a really talented actor is wasted in this poorly written role . A cat and mouse game between the assassin and Perumal was what we had expected from this movie, but sadly there is nothing of that sort here. Siddique repeats his ‘Bada Dhosth’ act here also.

Loop Holes galore:  Siddique,the assassin gives an anonymous call to all the leading newspapers and the visual media.Alas,the content of what he told them is the headline of all the newspapers,the next day!  The doctors who are treating the C.M, the private secretary to the C.M and a couple of other insignificant people are always a part of the super confidential meetings called by Perumal and co to find out the killer!  The super intelligent Perumal browses the poison page in our good old wiki and finds out the toxic substance that the killer has supposedly used to harm the C.M.!

The Best Scene:  The confrontation scene between Perumal and the ADGP Peter Zachariah (at Peter’s office) . This one is a pretty hilarious scene, thanks to the brilliant actor Lalu Alex. As Peter Zachariah,he is a real treat to watch and is unarguably the only saving grace in this otherwise dumb movie. The scene at the Party secretary’s house involving Perumal, Peter and the secretary(Saikumar dressed up like the CPI(M) secretary,Pinarayi Vijayan)is also a cracker.

Meghna Raj and Swetha Menon– The 2 main female characters in the movie have less than ten minutes of screen time in the whole movie. They blabber something and fade into the oblivion.

Background score – The re recording is competent. It serves the purpose of waking up the few who have already gone into deep slumber.

Good Acting:  Lalu alex as the ADGP is the only good thing about this movie. With his impeccable comic timing,he steals the show.

Shaji Kailas’ direction:  Nothing worth writing about. There are a lot of weird shots in the movie. Multiple extreme close up shots of tea being poured into the tumbler are included in this movie, the reasons for their inclusion is known only to the director, I guess.

What went wrong: S.N.Swamy repeats the same mistakes which he made in Sagar Alias Jackey, Baba Kaliyani, Positive, Rahasya Police. The Perumal in August 15 is only an extension of the character played by Mohanlal in Baba Kaliyani. The styling, body language et al are repetitive and even reminded the iconic ‘Sethuramayyar’ at places. The story is exactly the same as that of August 1.To spice up the proceedings a bit,the recent clash within the CPI(M) is also dealt with topically but the treatment and the writing is so bland that it fails to become even remotely interesting. Nothing much happens in the first half. But the most terrible thing with the script is that the mission, the assassin, the motive, the conspirators, the method and almost everything else get revealed way too early(within the first fifteen minutes to be exact)leaving behind Perumal nothing much to do for the next 2 hours or so. So we can’t really blame him for walking in slo-mo and mouthing silly dialogues, right?

The climax: Some 25 minutes before the climax we are made to believe that the assassin(Siddique) has a deadly plan to carry out on the 15 th of August, the Independence day. But even after the end credits started rolling, neither Perumal nor I had any clue about what S.N.Swamy was talking about. A badly choreographed action sequence shot in some C class theatre followed by the mandatory S.N.Swamy twist (which is the end result of the ‘inky -pinky-ponky’ game between the script writer and his characters)were what we had in store instead!

Verdict: Drona 2010, the Shaji Kailas directed M.Mani production with Mammootty in the lead role was a disaster .The gentleman he is, Mammootty gave dates to the producer M.Mani again so that he can make up for the losses incurred in his previous film, thus August 15 was born. We wish Drona 2010 had never happened.

Rating- 3/10(Stay away from this dud)

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

What should you do if you think you are talented in doing more than a task at a time? Focus on the one in which you are the best in and try to improve more, else you might end up being mediocre in everything. Doubting why I have turned philosophical all on a sudden? Go and watch ‘Malarvadi Arts Club’ and resume reading this post if you still don’t trust me.

Vineeth Sreenivasan, the 26 year old son of the talented, iconic script writer-director Sreenivasan is some one who is obsessed with lengthening his resume every now and then. After a successful singing ( which is still going strong) career and a passable’stint in acting has turned to scripting and directing movies now. His debut movie ‘Malarvadi Arts Club’ was supposed to be a trend setter(atleast Dileep, Kalyan Jewellers and Radio Mango thought so!) with an all new star cast, fresh songs and an astounding story line. After watching the movie I was pretty convinced that Vineeth is also banking on the ‘rent a dvd,make a movie’ trend which has helped Priyadarshan,Sanjay Gupta et al mint crores back in Bollywood. While Sanjay Gupta and Co might have spend a lot more on English/French/Korean DVDs ,Vineeth sreenivasan has effectively cut a lot of cost by resorting to cheaper DVDs(thanks to Moser Baer and Eros) of desi flicks like Rock On!, Chennai 600628, Goa, and Happy Days.

So we have 5 men who do nothing 24*7 living in an imaginary village some where around Thalassery. They organises hartals and walk in slow motion to kill time. Oh! the movie has to run for two hours atleast, so let me add a it felt as if the comedy track was added with Suraj Venjaramoodu just make sure that movie runs over 2 hours. And Suraj plays, once again the role of comic Goonda.

The gang of 5 are always in short of cash , hence they decide to start a music band to earn money. Santhosh Damodaran is the lead singer who can beat even Kaithapram in Kacheri. But apart from Kumarettan who runs the local tea shop(Nedumudi Venu) no one else knows that they are such great ‘pulis’. So no bookings for the show. Surprise surprise,Santhosh comes on TV reality show. Right from Kumarettan to Goonda Suraj start SMSing for him and he wins. Then comes the really surprising twist in the form of intermission.

Two random female characters were thrown into the mix just for the sake of having female chanracters. So we have an love story in between Purushu and Geethu.They meet during one of their early ganamelas and fall in love. After her brother gets him beaten to pulp, their love ripens and they marry only after a touching dialogue sequence between Purushu and her parents.

Now have a climax which is so different from Rock On and London Dreams since neither Salman, Ajay Devgan nor Farhan Akthar is a part of Junior Sreeni’s Malarvadikoottam and Santhosh Damodar has to sing a Malayalam song here.For a change, we have a couple of hummable songs by Shaan Rehman but that doesn’t seem to be good enough for a movie which banks heavily on it’s music to get itself clicked. Where is the Kashmalan song?

Coming to the technical departments of the movie, Vineeth Shrinivasan has chosen the conventional way of story telling . A lot of unwanted scenes like the one in which one of the lead men falling from height while making preparations for a programme could have been easily avoided. Sukumar’s camera also didn’t surprise us much. As far as the song visuals were concerned, there was nothing extra ordinary there too.The new comers were convincing with the guy who acted as Purushu being the pick of the lot.The character of ‘Kuttu’ is not as funny as it was supposed to be.The girls come and go after a couple of scenes. Some of the scenes were genuinely funny like the one in which Purushu first meets his love. As I mentioned before, Shaan Rehman’s songs were hummable,but it’s just not good enough. But the re recording was good. On the whole,the whole movie ends up as just another average fare which desperately tries to recreate the magic of similar ‘friendship’ movies made in our neighbouring states.

Verdict: Very Average Movie(since it is competing with other blunders like ‘Apoorva Ragam’, otherwise would have given it a below average tag)

The Malayalam director is also pleased about the fact that he beat off competition from none other than film legend Adoor Gopalakrishnan, also from Kerala, who won his seventh National Award, the Best Director nod for his film Naalu Penungal. “Adoor is a legend and the fact that I will receive an award in the same ceremony itself is a thrilling thing. And to top it off I also beat him as a competitor, What could be better,” says Priyadarshan who said that the awards came as a surprise. [This award proves all the naysayers wrong: Priyadarshan]

Next, Ousepachan. Finally he won his first national award, apparently after missing it narrowly for Unnikale Oru Katha Parayam and Freaky Chakra. The uniqueness of the music for Ore Kadal was:

that are all composed in one raga – Shuba Panthuvarali. The evocative, poignant numbers sung by singers like Bombay Jayashri, flautist Naveen Nair, Sujatha, G. Venugopal and youngsters Vineeth Sreenivasan and Swetha, and the composer himself, had enhanced the mood of the film and the theme.

The music composer is all praise for the director of the film, Shyamaprasad, who suggested that he compose all the songs in one raga to retain and accentuate the mood of the theme. To ensure that the songs did not sound monotonous, he “decided to vary the shruti and tempo” of the songs.

“It was a challenge for me. It is not a difficult task to compose songs in certain ragas like Mohanam or Kalyani but Shuba Panthuvarali is a difficult raga and so the director wondered if it would prove to be a difficult task. But, surprisingly, I took only three minutes each to compose four of the songs. It was the title track sung by Naveen that I had to work on,” recalls Ouseppachan. [The Hindu : Friday Review Thiruvananthapuram / Interview : Scoring a winner]

For the same film, Shyama Prasad won the third national award for the best film in Malayalam

“It has been an evolution that has seen me grow as a director and as a filmmaker,” says Shyamaprasad. He adds that although he was disappointed when his film was passed over by the State film awards jury last year, he has no complaints “as awards are elusive and each jury differs and these things happen. However, I did feel bad for Ouseppachan when he did not win an award for his work then. His songs and background score were exceptional and conveyed the story so well. It was an organic part of the film. It was his spontaneity that impressed me.”[The Hindu : Friday Review Thiruvananthapuram : Waves of applause]

Adoor too won the National Award, but that is like saying – the sun rises in the east. Naalu pennungal also won the award for the best editing.

It is a very good feeling [laughs]. I make a film after a long gap. So, every time I make a film, I forget what had happened before. It is a new experience for me every time. So, when I win an award, it makes me very happy. For me, every award is fresh and new. [It's not just another national award for Adoor Gopalakrishnan: Rediff.com movies]

Less mentioned is the fact that Vipin Vijay won the Special Jury Award for a non-feature film for ‘Poomaram’

The award-winning ‘Poomaram,’ is Vipin’s tribute to Judy Grahn’s radical Metaformic theory and is based on several aspects of her book ‘Blood, Bread and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World.’ “It is a ‘mythographic’ audio-visual observation of the interconnection between ancient menstrual rituals and the development of agriculture, mathematics, writing, calendars (the lunar calendar apparently bears similarities to menstrual cycles) and other realms of knowledge, science and arts,” explains the filmmaker. [The Hindu : Friday Review Thiruvananthapuram / Interview : Accolades for experiments]

Interestingly the best actor award went to Prakash Raj and not Mohanlal for Pardesi. If you look at it, Pardesi handled a sensitive issue and had all those words which would appeal to a jury – alienation, thrisanku swargam, homelessness etc. Also Mohanlal portrayed, with Pattanam Rasheed’s help, three stages in the life of a character. Long time back the finalists for the best actor award as Nedumudi Venu for Minnaminunginte Nuruguvettam and Kamal Haasan for Nayakan. The jury gave the award to Kamal since he portrayed the life span of a character whereas Nedumudi was old throughout the movie. This time that logic did not fly.

He had partially written a novel, which according to the famous novelist CP (Nedumudi Venu in a cameo), could change the Malayalam literary landscape. On hearing this Shivadasan (Mukesh), a small publisher tags along Balachandran, to convince him to finish the novel. He lives in a lodge, surrounded by his books, in a kind of cocoon.

His interactions with the external world are limited. When asked once why he does not own a cell phone, he retorts, “I have no one to call and no one to call me.” He never talks to others in the lodge, except for the boy-cum-caretaker Babu. He sends money to a Muslim girl about whom he had read in the newspaper. He also has a person who takes care of his land.

This small world changes when he gets a phone call from an  college mate Padma (Khushboo) and  some old memories are triggered. This plus Shivadasan’s prodding results in Balachandran taking up his pen. As the novel progresses, he gets more out of his shell, expresses human emotions explicitly and makes progress on his relationship.

As the movie moves to the climax, with Balachandran selling his land and carrying Rs. 3 lakhs, and going to Calicut with the money and his finished novel, terrorists strike. At this point we were shocked because there was such an impedance mismatch between the story so far and the climax.

This brings up the dilemma. The writer’s block, overcoming the writer’s block, the life of a writer – all those have been done perfectly. Though not novelists, but as people who read a lot and try to write something, these are dilemmas we identify with. So Balachandran’s predicament resonated with us.

The terrorism angle –  we have friends who survived Mumbai blasts and train bombs  – too resonated with us. The problem was with the connection between the two. In fact Ranjith, tries to make the connection – somewhere Shivadasan tells his wife that Balachandran’s novel is a great work of black humor on communalism. But in fact there is nothing in the movie which shows why Balachandran is affected by it – he never mentions any communal incident, he is never seen reading about it or discussing anything communal with anyone. When the policemen make fun of a Balachandran helping a Muslim girl, he seems clueless, unable to understand the situation. When such a person claims to be writing a novel about communal problems, it seems hollow.

Alfonso Cuarón‘s Y tu mamá también , is an example of one movie with multiple layers of narration  - there is a road trip, and there is a commentary on the economic situation in Mexico. To Cuarón‘s credit, he blends them well, right from the beginning. This makes the movie memorable, though some might argue that it is the sex scenes that make the movie memorable. The point we are tying to make is that in such movies you don’t spring up a surprise, like in the climax of a CBI movie. In fact in Kathavaseshan , T K Chandran did a better job in justifying Dileep’s behavior, to the point of making it contrived.

Ratheesh seems to be the only one who has  has seen through this:

Renjith has made the script as a series of patchworks with all good intentions to emphasize his “message” again and again, like some programs in school youth festivals. So, a kind-hearted Hindu helps a poor Muslim, an honest Muslim takes care of the property of a Hindu, and so on. The effort to add a “feel-good” factor related to “Love”, “Bridging between Religions” etc. pops up every now and then in the film. Mammootty tries hard to look truly like a sensitive and introvert writer, and adds a touch of uniqueness in the character, at least externally, by attaching certain mannerisms to Balachandran.

That said, we have to note that Ranjith has not fallen for the 80s standard of art movie making, where if there is a shot of one man walking 1km, the camera is turned on for the entire duration. He has dispensed with that level of pretentiousness and made the movie reasonably well paced.

Still when we see movies like Kaiyoppu, it just fails to connect in a memorable way like the Hindi movie A Wednesday which tackled the issue of terrorism in a brilliant, honest, non-boring way.

(Image via IndiaGlitz)

Nivedyam seems to be better than Lohitha Das’s previous movie Chakkaramuthu. But then that’s not exactly a compliment. The new hero and heroine have apparently given good performance, hopefully a good addition to the new generation of actors in Malayalam cinema. One of the songs, Odakuzhal, is already on top of the charts.

Nowrunning.com says:

Vinu Mohan, who makes his debut as Mohanakrishnan is good and suits his role. The new girl Bhama as Satyabhama doesn’t impress much. Bharath Gopi as Rama Varma Thampuran and Nedumudi Venu as the temple priest excel in their roles. None of the others in the cast impress us in any way. All the songs have come out very well and have been well visualized too, especially the “Chittatinkaavil…” and “Odakuzhal viliketto…” which are in true Lohithadas style. Cinematography, editing and art-work are among the high points of the film.

The sad thing about the movie is that, the writer (Lohithadas himself) couldn’t come up with a good story line. He deserves to be applauded for having moulded the lead character as someone very akin to the mythical Krishna and finding an apt hero for the character. But the story seems to have gone out of control and just peters out. The second half of the film tries our patience beyond all limits. We expected something better from Lohithadas!

IndiaGlitz comments:

Lohithadas has been in his best in the past, contributing fresh story lines to films that always captured the heart of the Malayalam viewer’s. But recently this industry’s most dependable writer-director has been keeping away from business for quite a time and even his comeback in Chakkaramuthu couldn’t make any impressive watch. So for Naivedhyam, he has attempted a rehash of the best tried and tested formula in Malayalam, taking bits and pieces from many hit films like Sallapam, Ee Puzhayam Kadannu, Nandhanam and Kasthooriman. Any way the result is a film which comes with his own brand of narration, giving us an endearing watch, this Onam.

Naivedhyam is a simple film, revolving around simple characters. Yet, it works, partly because the story defies the regular stereotype, due to its super-efficient performances and partly due to the well-crafted screenplay and convincing storytelling.The film’s opening hastily sketches the life of Mohana Krishnan, an outspoken Brahmin guy who is presently into carpentry work to keep his family comprising of his widowed mother and sister. He is the son of C .K, a famous dramatist, who fought for the rights of writers. Even after his father’s death, Mohana Krishnan managed to study all arts and crafts till his plus two, but as his family’s prospects fell on his shoulders, he left his traditions to find better jobs to maintain his family intact. Forwarded by one of his father’s friend lyricist Kaithapram, who happens to meet him in a composing session, Mohana Krishnan arrives at the Kovilakom, headed by Ramavarma Thampuram, a pious aged man who was a dear student of Chembai Vaidhya Natha Bhagavathar.

One of the problems in Malayalam cinema is that we don’t have any bankable second level actors. This lack of young actors restricts the number of stories that can be told and so we are forced to watch blockbuster superstar movies which are indistinguishable from their previous movies. It is not like film makers are not aware of this problem. Ranjith made a small movie called Nandanam few years back with some new comers and both Prithviraj and Navya Nair went on to become stars. Director Kamal tried Goal and Roshan Andrews tried Notebook and except Roma no one really survived.

Now Lohithadas who introduced Manju Warrier and Meera Jasmine, two very fine actresses, is introducing two new comers. The actress is Bhama and the hero Vinu Mohan is the grandson of Kottarakkara Sreedharan Nair.

Mohan Krishnan was looking fir a job at Kovilakom, but the financial position of the Tharavadu was not so bright that they can offer any job for him. But Mohana Krishnan had bigger personal problems that won’t allow him to go back. And in these circumstances Ramavarma Thampuran debuts him to assist the priest at the temple owned by the Kovilakam. Nedumudi, who is a regular in Lohithadas films, says “In this film, I enact the role of an old priest in a temple owned by a Kovilakam that is in dire straits. Although the elderly priest’s health is declining, he wants to continue. That is when a young Namboothiri youth is appointed. He doesn’t know anything about mantras and rituals. The old priest gives him necessary training and entrusts him with the rituals of the temple while keeping a supervisory role for himself”.

Once the Keezh Santhi comes, the prospects of the temple brighten as he works day and night to keep the rituals of the temple. The young priest attracts the attention of many young women, including the heroine Bhama, who is an orphan, the daughter of lady who committed suicide for his misdeeds. Eventually the youngsters fall in love.[ Naivedhyam - The Onam offering from Lohithadas ]

Music by M Jayachandran plays an important part in this film and after listening to it, we can say, it is definitely not Sargam. Lohithadas as a writer has had more success than Lohithadas the director and recently the audience has not taken kindly to his creations like Chakkrapottan. The success of new comer or minor star movies depends strongly on story and screenplay as is seen from movies like Sargam or Aniyathipravu and unless this movie has something which will bring people to theater through word of mouth, it may not not be profitable.

Then last Onam, a movie with a bunch of youngsters called Classmates turned out to be the biggest hit in Malayalam cinema. The question is, will that repeat again?

There are parallels between Ranjith, the script writer and the hero of his new movie Balachandran. Both of them lost their creativity – Ranjith with movies like Chandrolsavam and Prajapathi and Balachandran just unable to finish his novel. Some reviewers think it is a path breaking film and are impressed with the way the movie has turned out.

Velu Nair says

The film marks the reentry of a writer who had been on a digression mode for the last few years. It almost seems implausible that this sublime creation arises out of the same pen that cooked up a warped specimen as Prajapathi, that was clearly symptomatic of cerebral diarrhea. However, this time around, Renjith grabs the fake Malayali machismo by the neck, and slams it against the wall resolutely with a caricature that finds life in Lalitha (Neena Kurup) who drives around with her hubby behind her on the scooter, or curtly asks why she couldn’t have a quick drink with her male companions.

Kaiyoppu cannot be denied the status of a path breaking film, in that it callously shreds apart the traditional milieu that has been choking Malayalam cinema almost to death. And in doing so, it never takes upon itself the role of the preacher, and rests content with the curt deliverance of a few messages that never ever insolently poke the viewer on the chest; yet slightly nudge to remind him as to what had gone amiss in his life and the world, while he was fast asleep. And as such, Kaiyoppu remains one of the most momentous cinematic signatures in recent times.

Paresh Palicha in Rediff

It is also to Ranjith’s credit that he makes a film which looks intensely personal in the first half relatively universal as it goes on. The pacing of the film is slow and might be criticised for appearing pretentious, but the peppy dialogues keep the momentum going.

Mammootty on his part looks the introverted struggling author. The way he carries himself brings out the feeling of him being both a spent force as well as a resurgent genius.

Mukesh plays a perfect foil to Mammootty’s character, with his enthusiasm and exuberance never going overboard. Kushboo too should be commended, as most of the time she is alone in the frame talking on the phone.

Kayyoppu, being a marked departure from the typical Ranjith style of filmmaking, deserves at least a watch.

Nowrunning.com comments:

Kayyoppu (Signature), directed by Ranjith, is a film that has the maker’s signature all over it. Though it may not be a crowd puller, the film impresses you, shocks you, disturbs you and awakens you to grim realities that are mostly overlooked. In spite of some flaws the film stands apart, and is worth seeing more than once.

Mammootty as the central character Balachandran is very impressive. Occasionally though, the star in him comes to the fore making his performance seem a bit artificial to keen observers. Khushboo as Padma, Mukesh as Sivadasan, Nedumudi Venu as C.P. Vasudevan, Narayanan Nair as Balachandran’s estate-manager and father-figure Kammaran, Jaffer as Babu who looks after things in the lodge etc have done their respective roles very convincingly

It is the sensitive approach of the director that makes the film stand apart. The very touching and disturbing climax remains etched in our minds for a long time. Though one gets the feeling that Ranjith occasionally tries to be a little arty, the director ought to be appreciated for a film that is definitely not to be missed by those who love good cinema.

IndiaGlitz says:

The sensitive approach of the director makes way to the characters which are built worthwhile. The way Ranjith has presented Balachandran and the world around him is just awesome! Mammootty as the introverted struggling author Balachandran is very impressive. The peppy dialogues keeps us engaged over the snailish pace in which story unfolds. Mukesh comes out with a brilliant performance. But Khushbu as Padma steals the show and she has done it with a bang. Narayanan Nair as Balachandran’s estate-manager, Nedumudi Venu as C.P. Vasudevan and Jaffer as Babu who looks after things in the lodge, Mamukoya etc have done their respective roles very commendably.