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.

Towards the end of the film, Sunny Joseph (Mohanlal) asks Nakulan (Suresh Gopi) to tell his wife Ganga (Shobhana) not to go shopping. She might question him, but Sunny asks Nakulan to be firm. The camera follows Nakulan as he walks into the room where Ganga is getting ready. He asks where she was going and she replies, “I told you, for shopping”. Nakulan tells her strongly not to go that day.

First Ganga asks why not and Nakulan keeps on saying that she should not go.Suddenly Ganga’s voice turns angry, her face turns menacing with the eyes rolled up and her whole body language changes. She points her finger at Nakulan and shouts in Tamil, and with the other hand lifts a wooden bed. Nakulan is terrified, but he shouts her name at the top of his voice. Ganga pauses and returns back to normal. Then she realizes that the mental patient of Madambally is herself and not Sridevi (Vinaya Prasad).

This is one of the powerful scenes in this movie which starts when Nakulan and Ganga come from Calcutta to Kerala for a project. Ignoring the warnings by their uncle Thampi (Nedumudi Venu), they decide to stay in an ancestral home which is considered to be haunted. The story is that a Tamil dancer Nagavalli was bought by the local king and she fell in love with another dancer. The king did not like this and had her killed. Her ghost was loitering around looking for revenge. and so they perform some pooja and lock the ghost in a room.

Ganga does not believe this and opens the room and various incidents start taking place. Sometimes vessels and stones are flung around, sometimes saris catch fire and the suspicion falls on Sridevi. Nakulan asks his uncle to show her to a psychiatrist, but he does not. Irritated, Nakulan calls his friend Sunny Jospeh to come and help him. How Sunny Joseph cures Ganga is the climax of the movie.

The story of this movie is very unique and has not been told before. First we thought it is a supernatural story, but as we understood the dual personality of Shobhana we got very interested in this character and how she would be able to get out of her predicament. The characters in the movie, Sunny Joseph, Nakulan, Ganga, Ammavan are all memorable and have been portrayed with realism.

Even though this is a ghost movie, there are no special effects. Director Fazil uses simple tricks like shadows on the wall and sounds to heighten the tension. In one scene, the whole family goes to watch a Kathakali performance. Sunny sits in the front and occasionally turns back to see if Ganga is alright. The sound of the drums heighten in the background. Then, once when Sunny turns back, there is silence and Ganga is not there. The intensity of the scene is heightened by the lack of any background sound, which we thought was a very innovative but subtle technique.

In this movie, the script by Madhu Mattom is the hero and Shobhana is the heroine. Shobhana had two roles, one as the mild mannered Ganga and the other as the revenge seeking Nagavalli. It during the Nagavalli phase that you see her transformation, in her voice and in her mannerism. Shobhana won a truly deserved National Award for this role.

Mohanlal makes his entry just before the interval, which is unconventional. From that point onwards, it is his show and the character he portrays is that of a fun loving psychiatrist. He is unconventional in his treatment style also. Mohanlal does not have much histrionics in this movie and plays a very subdued role.

For a movie which is a psycho-thriller, it has excellent comedy provided by Innocent, Lalitha and Mohanlal himself. There is a scene where Mohanlal goes to take bath and takes the clothes of Lalitha who was bathing in the next stall. Their conversation across the wall had us in splits.

There is only one scene which irritated us. There is a scene where an angry Sunny, takes Sridevi to a room and locks her up in front of the whole family. While everyone is stunned, Sunny Joseph breaks into a song, which was very odd. Mohanlal thinks that only Fazil could have pulled it off.

The story, screenplay and dialogue is by Madhu Mattom and we liked all three of them. There are no unnecessary scenes in this movie and each scene in the screenplay sustains our interest in the story. We also are impressed by the craft of director Fazil for making this movie very interesting. The movie also had a second unit by directors Sathyan Antikkad and Priyadarshan. M.G.Radhakrishnan has provided some memorable music for this movie. All the songs are nice to hear, but our favourite is Palavattom Pookalam

This movie is one of our favourites and is a must watch.

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