THE first thing that struck me about Santosh Sivan’s  Urumi is its simplicity.  Okay, so it reportedly cost around Rs 20 crore to make.  Sure,the frames are rich, the sets lavish and the canvas grand.  But Urumi is ,at its core, a simple tale of valor.   It speaks of wronged men and womenwho were desirous of revenge and justice and refused to go quietly though pitted against a powerful adversary (Vasco Da Gama, shown as a ruthless, mercenary invader as opposed to the celebrated explorer).  The dialogue is sharp and unabashedly patriotic: Aa kuttikalude kannukalil Vasco kandu…mola pottunna oru shathruvine…abhimaanam adiyaravu vekkatha orujanata ye (In the eyes of those children, Vasco saw a budding enemy, apeople unwilling to grovel).  There is no inessential glorification of the protagonist, Kelu Nayanar (Prithviraj). He is portrayed as a bold warrior out to avenge his father’s death, reacting to his circumstances and mobilising his people.

The characters are introduced quickly, without ceremony.  And before you know it, you’re drawn into the narrative.  I meant to watch the first 15 minutes or so before I stepped out for a coke. It was a full 50minutes before I reluctantly left my seat.  That said, the makers have over done the whole disclaimer bit at the very onset:  That this is ‘only a movie’ is repeated once too often.  Now, wouldn’t you rather be led to believe you’re *not *watching a film but seeing a slice of life unfold onscreen?  Oh well.  Can’t really blame them for wanting to avoid lawsuits.

Deepak Dev’s compositions are above average. Watch out for Prabhu Deva’s dance scene with the soulful Thelu thele playing in the background. It has a serene, trance-like quality.  Full marks to the creators for not allowing the viewer to think, “Oh, just because he’s a dancing sensation anda reputed choreographer!”

Then there are the beautiful women. Nithya Menon looks bewitching in Chimmi Chimmi.  Genelia D’Souza is aptly cast as the fiesty Arrackal Ayesha, who can wield the urumi as effectively as the warrior hero. Tabu makes aspecial appearance (song) while Vidya Balan has a blink-and-miss part.

Prithviraj proves yet again that he can carry off roles that his contemporaries in Malayalam cinema would be laughed at in.  Amol Gupte is arevelation as the gullible,  good-at-heart but ill-advised king.  Not even ina single scene do you feel he’s out of place in a Malayalam mileau. Such talent!  A superb Jagathy Sreekumar (as the canny, conniving, polyglot minister, Cheni Cheri Kurup) gives a whole new definition to the epiphet veteran actor and there is a refreshing turn by Prabhu Deva (as the immensely likeable Vavvaali: Caring, witty, naive, ever mindful of  being righteous).

Never mind the historical inaccuracies,  they’re bound to be there! Those who whine cannot conclusively prove or disprove their theories. What are they going to do, go back in time?  And as Robert the Bruce narrates in Braveheart: “Historians will tell you I’m a liar. But history is written by those who have hanged heroes.”  The beautiful visuals, well-executed fight scenes and the vibrant performances make  Urumi a compelling watch. Two thumbs-up.

PS:  I don’t care much for the English title, though. The Coiled Sword has a nice ring to it, no?

Randamoozham

After years of speculation, looks like novel Randamoozham is going to be made as a movie. We as fans of MT and Randamoozham cannot comprehend how topic that vast and canvas that big could be made into a movie. But we are sure that MT being MT will come up with a fitting screen version.

Bheema is all set for a new act. Nearly three decades after M.T. Vasudevan Nair’s masterpiece novel ‘Randamoozham’ (Second Turn), floored Malayalis, the Pandava warrior from the Mahabharata is eyeing the big screen.
M.T.’s celebrated novel is going to be made into a film by Hariharan. M.T. is working on the script, even as Hariharan is doing his own homework for what is perhaps the most ambitious project of the writer-director duo in their association of over 30 years.['Randamoozham' to make its screen debut]

The announcement about the movie has led to furious discussions and intense speculation about casting of this  movie in various film forums and webs sites and in public minds. As  we said earlier, being huge fans of this novel do not want nothing but the best set of actors to enact  the various characters of this novel. We are curious to know your take on who should do the following characters:

• Bheeman
• Draupadi
• Arjunan
• Yudhishtiran
• Vidurar
• Krishnan
• Kunti
• Karnan

Update (May 8th): If your comment has to be approved, you need to provide your suggestions for all the characters listed above. This is to make the “M” fans stretch their brains a bit. Earlier comments have not been deleted.

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.

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

Direction: Joshiy / Joshee/ Josh-hee or some other funny spelling.  Other crew: I don’t know, and I frankly don’t care, because, they are not even worth mentioning.

Well, we have all seen this – a hundred times.  A father of high moral values – misunderstands his son – thinks son is gone rogue -  dad supports the villains -  kicks the son out of his house – later when the villains attack the father,  son returns – saves him – father says sorry and dies.

Just to refresh your memory – Sphadikam, Balettan, Chotta Mumbai – a few in which Gentleman Cadet Mohanlal himself starred.  So if you have seen any of those,  save yourselves from this one,  go buy a bottle for the cost of the ticket and enjoy your evening.

Josheeyi, Josh-hee, joshy josh hey Joshey after the hangover of 20-20 is stuck in the same soup formula,  mega movies,  huge stars(literally!),  larger than life roles and cheap slap stick comedy.

Here is the story,  or what is left of it:  Rtd. Captian Vargheese Mappila (Saikumar) marries off his daughter Jessy (lakshmi Gopalaswamy) to Krishna(Goergootty) who is actually a pimp in Mumbai. Christi(Mohanlal ) who is a decent god fearing, family loving son, as he always used to be in all movies,  goes to Mumbai and finds out the dealings of Georgeootty.  Georgeootty kills the goondas who were chasing them for no apparent reason, while he could have run away, hands over the gun the Christi and escapes. The police arrests poor innocent Christi(violins in the background, please).  Georgootty doesn’t stop there – he goes home, kills Jessy, his wife, again for no apparent reason. The clever villain then goes to Kerala, to Saikumar and tells him its Christi who did all this.

Tang da-dang !

Poor Christi out on bail, returns to his father to explain these things – Then the familiar thing happens -
Christi: “Dad, I have to tell you something”
Vargheese Mappila: “No, I dont want to hear anything! You have spoiled the family’s prestige ! you killed my daughter! Get out ! I dont want to see you again!”

Christi: “ But dad, its kind of important, you should hear this”
Vargheese Mappila: “No! I dont want to hear it! Get out!”

(well, if you remember seeing such scenes a 2983 times before, starting from Satyan-Sheela movies,  its your fault,  you don’t forget anything, do you?)

Christi, is disappointed as much he would be if he didn’t get ticket to a movie, walks out of the house,  promising never to return.

That bugger pimp Georgeootty, killed his sister, put him in jail, blamed him for everything, won the trust of dad, and is staying in the same house with your other sister -  and Christy cool, simbly walks out.

If you are still with me, there is more- Suraj Venjaranmoodu is irritating( if i had a cook like him, he wouldn’t last 2 days at my home – got to admire the patience of the Home Minister – enacted by Devan), Harisree Ashokan( his 24th time in the role of a broker) is damn irritating.  Guys, wake up!  The name of what you did on screen is called cheapness, not comedy. I had a better laugh when I watched clowns in cheap circus tents.

The intro scene of Mohanlal:  After the usual build up,  there is fire all over the screen – Mohanlal appears and floats horizontally and fires bullets at the audience, then he splits into 3 and joins back again.  What an amazing skill!  I hear that Mohanlal recently mastered this trick while training with the Indian army.

Then there are the main villains- Vijayaraghavan and co. They just drink scotch whiskey near the pool and randomly stab and kill people.

The average age of all the actors in the movie is 53 years, 9 months.

A fat and old Suresh Gopi, a faint shadow of his former movie image,  mouthing rhyming dialogues and marching here and there in uniform.

The fight scenes at regular intervals of 20 minutes are perfectly choreographed by Disco Shanti. No body gets hurt.(nothing spectacular here, go out for a smoke if you like. if you have seen one Mohanlal fight, you have seen it all)

Its a 3 hour 15 minutes of non stop torture. Wait for a few weeks and the theater projector operators will do some editing for you,  and hopefully make more sense then what is presently there. I am sure with some lavish use of scissors, we can recycle the rubbish and re-create a 10 minute crisp completely different movie, or maybe a couple of them.

Other than to show a bit of skin and also to show us, the stupid audience, that Christi is a man with emotions and is capable of loving and caring, there is Lakshmi Rai, and two completely unnecessary songs.

Dileep blabbers his usual stuff and roams around through screens, well,  I don’t know what else he did in the movie, other than being a reason to bring in Kavya Madhavan and an irritating song in foreign locations.

This is the kind of nonsense movie these old Jurassic age directors churn out. These are the kind of movies the stalwarts like Mohanlal and Suresh Body choose to act.

And these are the kind of movie that we, poor Malayalees, deserve to see – because it’s us, and no body else, gave the movie makers the feeling that we will gulp down any sh*t that is presented to us packed in colorful superstar wrappers and tied with the ribbon of over hype.

Enjoy your evening watching the news at home, it will be more entertaining than this movie.

Christian Brothers Rating: 2/10

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

If you are unhappy with the lack of women-centric themes in Malayalam cinema, here’s a reprieve. This movie belongs to Kavya Madhavan, who has brilliantly delivered the role portraying the hardships of a Malayalee maid in a Sheikh’s house in Saudi Arabia.