For those of us used to seeing so called “Entertainers” like Twenty-Twenty or various mindless comedy movies, Urumi is a welcome change. It is a bold move from the producers to think of a big canvas movie, get a pan-Indian cast and film it as professionally as possible. The movie falls into a new category which can only be called fantasy-historical-fiction for it is not historical-fiction. In historical fiction, the writer tries to stay within the historical narrative and weave a tale without violating the space-time continuum. Brilliant writers like M.T even weave a new tale within the given parameters. But in this movie Shanker Ramakrishnan decided to throw the history out of the window. Instead what we have is a tale which takes place during Vasco da Gama’s voyage to India and that is pretty much the history part. Rest of the stuff is his imagination in overdrive mode and he makes it very clear in the begining of the movie when he writes all incidents have been changed for dramatic purposes.

But guess what. We don’t have any issue with it. A story is a story and the only question is if the dramatic purpose has been served. It a revenge saga of a boy who wanted to kill Gama because Gama killed his father. We can call this a Hero’s journey for it tries to follow a set pattern as the hero travels and goes through new lands and has new adventures. In this movie Kelu Nayanar’s calling is revenge. He knows Vasco da Gama is in town and wants to kill him. In fact at the begining of the movie itself the pre-history is given and Kelu has crossed the threshold and made a commitment.

So now that the motive has been given, what do you do for the next 2 hours 30 minutes? We see him travel along with his buddy Vavvali (Prabhu Deva) and during their travel they meet rest of the cast — Chirakkal Bala (Nithya Menon), her father (Amol Gupte), the king of Kolothunaadu and his scheming minister (Jagathi Sreekumar). They also meet Arakkal Ayesha (Genelia), Vavvali’s mother and also an Oracle (Vidya Balan). Finally, as expected, Kelu gets his revenge.

Imagine now that you are on a travel and you meet all these people and take their pictures. It is not really an interesting journey isn’t it. You need some twists in the plot. In fact there are some twists in the sub-plots, but none of them affect Kelu or his personality. The sub-plot concerns the way Kolothunadu is ruled and the succession battle there. There is another sub-plot concerning Arakkal Ayesha and her fight, but that too has nothing to do with Kelu, except for the fact that he is around. In such movies, what you want to see is the hero being put to test, completely pushed to the ground and how he survives that, rises and achieves his goal. Think Devasuram. Neelakantan is pushed to the ground and his machoism cannot save him. He has to rely on Revathi’s character to teach him some lessons about himself and life. As you empathize with him, there is a transformation in the viewer. The viewer who hated him till interval is now rooting for him.

In Urumi though, Kelu is never down. He is like Mayavi who appears in every troubled scene and saves the damsel. That is not really interesting. In Star Wars, when Luke is down, he has to go to a mentor, Yoda, who trains him and he returns back. Our heroes don’t need any training. They are experts in fighting and singing the moment they are born. There is no change in Kelu’s personality in the 150 minutes of the movie. He delivers dialogue in the same dead-pan mode and this makes him really an uninteresting person.

But there are three people who make the movie interesting: Jagathi, Amol Gupte and Nithya Menon. They get quite a number of scenes and it is a delight to watch them perform. These are well etched characters.

We already have written about the music, so lets mention a few things about cinemotography. It is by Santosh Sivan and there is nothing more we need to say. The visuals cannot get better than this. But just watching brilliant visuals without a strong story does not make a memorable movie. But then Santosh Sivan has some staple shots which are repeated in most of his movies. There is a scene in Asoka where SRK and Kareena take bath in slow motion under a waterfall. There is an exactly similar shot in this movie. Another obesession of his is eyeballs and closeups of eyeballs. From Terrorist to this movie, you see the same shot. In one song all the characters jump up and down on an invisible trampoline. You can call these shots his signature, but these repetitive shots pull you away from the immersive experience.

While the songs are terrfic, another let down is the BGM. Look at the scene where Chirakkal Bala is attacked and the music that goes in that scene. It is a fight scene and the music is the most inappropriate one. We know why it was done. Each person has a particular theme and that music is blindly dumped when the character appears. Similarly there is a piece when Ayesha appears and she is asked to sit on the lap of Chirakkal king’s lap. There is a scene where Prithviraj comes to resceue Ayesha and guess what music plays in the fight scene?

The next terrible thing in the movie is the visualization of songs. We simply loved hearing those songs, but when we saw them, some were not interesting. Aarane Aarane was done very well and so was Chimmi Chimmi. But look at the visuals for Aaro Nee Aaro. It is like a rock video songs with all the extras and Prithvi jumping up and down. It looks as if people from the 15th century suddenly time traveled to the 21st century MTV studio. Also the Oracle song called Chalanam Chalanam was simply terrible.

The movie brings up an important issue that none of us know about our history and care about it. Thus when the movie starts we see this guy called Krishnadas who is selling his ancestral property and then after hearing about Vasco’s story, changes his mind. The movie also paints the true picture of Vasco da Gama who was one blood thirsty trader. While the visuals are stunning, there is nothing great about the story. It is not the stuff of classic movies. While the creators have made a decent entertainer, they have missed an opportunity to create a Gladiator. We had great expectations from Shankar-Ramakrishnan-Santosh Sivan combo and maybe that is why we are disappointed.

Saw Urumi on last Thursday @ Q Cinemas Kochi… Beleive me, it has to be seen in a theater that has this good sound effects and digital screening abilities to enjoy it to the hilt!! It shows that there is atleast one star (I dont want to create another argument here in the comments by calling Prithvi a superstar and the fans of M&M questioning that) is there in Malayalam who cares about scripts and screenplays. (Though his movie selections like Thriller make us doubt it!! )

Coming to the movie it was a visual extravaganza created by best cinematographer in India Santhosh Sivan (only second to PC Sreeram, according to me).. The acting in the movie was top-class. Though there may be detractors calling Prithvi was a tad wooden, I believe it is his character that warranted that.. That said, Prabudeva, Genelia, Jagathy & Amol Gupte were marvellous.. Genelia rocked the scenes she was on the screen and she is unlike anything the Genelia, that a regular film goer knows. I have to applaud Santhosh sivan to have identified that seething tigress Arackal Ayesha, in the usually chirpy Genelia.. I doubt she will ever get a role like this even in the future.. But for sure, she can rest now doing crappy running-around-the-woods kind-of-heroine roles for the rest of her life with the satisfaction of having done some real acting!!

In most of the reviews, mentioned here as well as the ones that has not made into this site, have not done justice to one of the characters and the actor who performed the role – Chirakkal Thamburan performed by Amol.. He was in a single word fabulous.. He shows how one should act.. There is not a single scene where U feel that he is a non mallu acting in a period mallu film.. Even in the scenes where he has nothing much to talk, he shows great acting. I believe he has taken pains to understand each and every scene, every dialog that is being uttered by whoever is there in the screen and seem to have discussed with the director and clearly understood what his reaction should be for every second!! He gets his chance with some choiciest dialogs that bring applauses and laughter from the audience..

The only thing I felt odd in this movie was the flirty nature of the character Chirackal Bala played by Nithya Menon.. An acid-tongued princess who is bold enough to challenge her attackers and strong enough to voice her opinions in the royal court on one hand and flirting with Prabudeva like a dumb-blond on the other doesnt gel well. And the Makom character played by Vidya Balan, I am sorry I couldn’t understand why she is there in the story… I felt it was one thing that stuck out like a sore thumb.

That said, I gotta appreciate Santhosh Sivan for not falling into the charms of CGI for the war sequences. It was easy to fall for, but resisting all that and shooting the climax fight sequences naturally with the available resources is really appreciable…

Finally to all who have been enjoying the likes of mindless masala movies like Pokkiri Raja, Christian Brothers and August 15, go watch this movie to refresh urself!!!

(This review was written by Hari Krishnan and is cross posted from his blog Malayalam Movie Reviews)

I saw this movie couple of days back, but had to wait till now to write this, to regain my confidence that I am a person of normal intelligence.

August 15 is a basic school drama type movie. Known plots, obnoxious characters and irritating dialogues.
And remember to leave your intelligence at the door, you won’t need them while you watch this movie. Even the producer, director or script writer never used it, then why would you?

The plot is the same, a good CM, and villains targeting to kill him. The basic problem with this plot is that, it is way too predictable and it takes a genius to present it in an intelligent manner. Think of “Catch me if you can” – it was predictable too, but see how well it was presented. That shows the intelligence and caliber of the movie makers.

As always, there is a person who is given a negative shade so that naturally, the audience will suspect them (In this movie, the director is kind enough to explain the plot in the first 10 minutes in a detailed manner. So that the dumb witted people like me can understand what is happening on the screen. Here it’s established that mafia has hired Siddique to kill the CM). Now this being a typical S.N. Swamy movie, we always know that there will be a twist (if I can call it that) so to confuse us, there is a character( Aravindakshan played by Jagathy), given an extra shade of goodness, so that we may think that he is behind all this.

Then twist on twist, a character in the sidelines is the actual person who planned all this. (Remember Vijayaraghavan from CBI 1?) It could be anyone, you choose- it could be even CM’s wife. Then the hero explains and gives weird reasons why he/she is the villain. We have no choice but to accept it, and wonder the brilliance of the hero and go home happily. Justice is done. Peace.

But justice is not done to the audience. Remember Manichitrathazhu- the scene in which Shobhana goes for the neck of Mohanlal long before the suspense is revealed- It was shown to us, right before our eyes, but we still missed it. If you were smart enough, we could have caught Shobhana there. There is nothing like that in this movie, Not even a spark.

And the interesting part is the movie makers know all this, but they don’t care. They try to give explanations for minor things like why Mammootty doesn’t wear a helmet and leaves all the major loopholes in the movie open.

Super hero Mammootty, is the CB CID. He is all in all, knows it all, and just below god in knowledge and status. He doesn’t believe in helmets, rides his Enfield in slow motion, wearing low- waist pants.

Let me ask you- if we know someone is poisoned, what do we do? We try to find what poison it is, its availability and access to people we can suspect. We trust the lab to give us the report. That is their expertise. But not for Mammootty- He searches Wikipedia and finds everything about poison and explains those to the core team. I even saw him typing frantically with Wikipedia page open- maybe he fixed some errors while he was there.

Then the Villain, obsessed with killing the CM, shoots from a roof top. Ha Ha ! Not with clever Mammootty around. He had put a dummy in the car. ( For once, I wished the dummy was me, it was far better). Then, remember there is a battalion of policemen around him, but only Mammootty with his zoom vision spots Siddiqque, and runs behind him alone. It is my humble request to the director, out of respect to the age of the actors, please don’t make them do all that.

Yes, the director got some young and fit stunt men to do the jumping etc, But still there is a lot of running around and movements, Can our actors in their present age, do all that?  I wouldn’t take that risk.  In the good old days, Prem Nazir knew a stunt to jump backwards to the top of a building, there are similar scenes in this new age modern flick!

Mammootty also makes the portraits of the Villain, in Photoshop, sticks everything on to a wall and randomly shoots at the images. Suddenly, one portrait comes apart, and that is the villain’s image !

Who is he? The parrot in a cage? To pick a card, that predicts the future?

Mammootty, once says, that he doesn’t need an office for some weird reason, but after a while he is in a beautifully decorated office with some 2-3 beautiful girls from Police CyberCell.  And you know what the Cybercell does? They have hired a few good looking girls, they call up the mobile operator guys and sweet talk to them to give them the required details. WTF? It shows the bloody ignorance and attitude of the script writer and the director. I say, if there is anyone who is working in cybercell, who has dignity, should file defamation case against this movie. What a shame!

Everything takes time in this movie, “it will take couple of days to get the lab report”  “it will take couple of days to get that report” so that the movie can go on for about 2 hours or more. If the reports come fast, which I bet it can, there is no story, there is no movie, and there is no money. In this way, “it will take couple of generations for these super directors and script writers to mature and create something watchable”

The DGPs runs to Mammootty whenever they are confused or tense- like school children to the teacher- Mr. Know it all, consoles them, explains things to them and sends them back clearing all their doubts, but stops short of giving them homework.

And finally, Mammootty kills the villain in a theatre which is on fire. Surprise! Who would have thought?

I think the lead characters name was Mammootty itself. All I saw was Super Hero, Demigod Mammootty on the screen. No character.

And in this election time, the movie says that there are no issues between the CM and the party secretary. But we knew that already. Didn’t we?

Technically speaking:
For shooting movies, and to ensure that the shots are steady, there is this new fangled contraption called a camera stand. Pradeep Nair, if you are unaware of this device- it will help you stabilize your shots and offer the viewer a better viewing experience. I got squint eyes and neck is still sprained watching this movie. Completely unnecessary pans and zooms- a typical aspect of Shaji Kailas movies- which was a trade mark of old B grade movies still continues in this. FEFKA or PEPSI, whatever is its name, please pass a resolution to Never ever again give Pradeep a zoom lens. He will play around with it like a kid with a new toy and make the whole experience a painful one. Maybe it’s my eyes, but I am pretty sure that I saw some shots which were completely out of focus.

Set direction- check any scene, which has a table- there is a pencil holder with multi color pencils. Be it DGPs office, Mammotty’s home, CM’s home or anywhere. Did the director in parallel announce an art competition among the characters?( as a sample see here, here, here and here )

The shoddiness of the director is such that, even the false beards of the priest are so evident as if it’s a kid’s fancy dress. Haven’t you guys figured how to fix a beard till now? Come on, really ?

Technically, this movie sucks. (as if it doesn’t suck otherwise!) Typical marriage video standard editing/animations, audio and video are not synchronized multiple times, oh and did I say about the shoddy and pseudo action film camera work?

Only one good thing about this movie is that there is no Kavya Madhavan and Dileep and a song in London streets. And hence I generously give .1/2 marks more than Christian Brothers.

August 15 is a cheap, boring and silly high school drama.

August 15 Rating: 2.5/10

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

That said, the movie starts off with the murder of Naxal Varghese (Prithviraj). Constable Ramachandra Pillai was forced by his superiors to shoot the tortured prisoner . Thus within 10 minutes, you know what you need to know that Varghese was a Naxal and he was not killed in an encounter, but intentionally shot dead. So where is the movie heading now?

The movie is a biopic of Ramachandra Pillai, who has a troubled life. His life is a mess. He drinks. He has extra-marital relationships. He is unmoved by the plight of his wife and kids. Now script writer Babu Janardanan after presenting this side, presents the other side as well. He explains why a man who never drank, starts drinking.  Explains the  ‘other woman’ and  nature of  their relation.  But unfortunately, the melodrama of this is wrapped in an Inception like flashback within a flashback making it utterly boring. Even the personality of Ramachadra Pillai is boring. In the entire movie he seems to be a man resigned to his fate, barely raising his finger to change things and accepting everything as it happens. Maybe the real man was like that, but that does not make for good fiction.

It is during his initial posting in Wynad that he meets Naxal Varghese who is played by Prithviraj in an as-wooden-as-you-can get mode. He only has a few scenes with dialogue, but except for a few like the one in the bus with the conductor, everything looks preachy. Now Naxals are supposed to preach ideology, but when your personal conversations with others too appear with similar tone, then it is boring. This does not end when he is alive. Once he is dead, he appears often and preaches.

When you see a well made movie, the director does not stand out. The movie just flows and at the end you get that “wow” feeling. But when you see a Mani Ratnam movie, you can see the director hard at work trying to craft each scene.  You can see that in first time director Madhupal’s work. He tries all sorts of tricks and the one which was a put off was pulling off to a long shot during a conversation scene. There is a scene where the constable and the naxal are talking in a forest. It is a brief line out of the blue without an establishing shot or framing shot to see the characters. But the worst comes towards the last when Pillai goes to meet his dead wife. His brother-in-law (Maniyanpilla Raju) physically assaults him and as the emotional intensity increases, the camera pulls away to show the scenery. This is one scene where you want to frame tightly. Again when Varghese is about to be killed, various 80s style trolley shots are tried. These irritating gimmics take out the emotinal intensity of the scene.

Now contrast it with the movie Social Network which is purely dialogue based. But once the movie starts, you are sitting with rapt attention till the end. In that movie too the script moves between flashback and present, but they all gel very well. At no point in time do you see the director or DOP trying to make a point.

Now the sad part is this. The Naxal movement and the tactics used by the state are an important part of our history. No one can forget what happened to Rajan during Emergency. This story could have been done much better than Thalapavu. Also since Babu Janardanan took an early bail by claiming this is fiction, he could have at least revealed the politicians behind the murder and their justification for this action. He could have shown the side of the state as well. From the way Thalapavu was presented, it resembled a docu-drama.

Coming back to the point about newbie directors, there is a similar movie on Naxals which did not get much attention. Gulmohar by director Jayaraj with super-writer Ranjith playing the title role and it was mostly gripping. You could empathize with the man and his inner troubles. With Ramachandra Pillai, you are just confused.

With another  director and better script, this would have been a better movie.

The shot does not end there. Espósito and Sandoval spot Isidoro Gómez, who they suspect to be the rapist and murderer of the beautiful Liliana Colotto. They both chase him through the stadium as the camera, which is not a steady cam, follows them. Finally Gómez is arrested. Now they have to prove that he indeed is the murderer for they don’t have definite proof. They suspect him based on the way he looked at Colotto in one photograph.

This murder and its resolution is one layer of this brilliant movie written by Eduardo Sacheri and Juan José Campanella. While those events happened in the 70s, there is a thread set in present day when a retired Espósito decides to write about this case and meets his old boss, Judge Irene Menéndez-Hastings, who was a crucial link in solving this case. Espósito had a thing for Hastings, but it never worked out.

Another layer is added by Ricardo Morales, Colotto’s husband. He wants vengeance and spends his time in the railway station looking for Gómez. But he goes through a surprising turn, a turn which is revealed only in the climax.

This is one script which respects the viewer’s intelligence. There is no spoon feeding. There is no Rajamani style deafening BGM. People talk casually and the camera sits non-intrusively. The viewer feels as if he is just a fly on the wall. If you have seen the other excellent Argentinian movie Nine Queens, you probably know how it feels.

The second, important point is the character study. You get to see all these people over a course of three decades and the transformation that happens. The transformation is not just for them, but also in their relationships. On a big scale, it is a story of redemption for all the characters and there are many different shades of redemption. For Espósito it is a matter of getting over his disappointment of Gómez going scott free and Hastings marrying someone else. For Morales, it is a matter of justice. What can he do when the killer of his wife is let go? Or how can he let go of his love for his wife?. In fiction writing, this is called character arc. The character faces a dilemma which affects his core values and he has to make a decision. Some decisions are instantaneous, while others take a long time. All the characters go through this process which is what adds depth to the movie.

That said, we still did not get why Espósito decided to go back to Morale’s farm. It was too subtle or may be we need to see the movie once more. Also the way the suspect was identified, just based on a photo, seems to feeble. But even then, the movie kept us engrossed as the characters became interesting and the back and forth between present day and the 70s very engrossing.

As we were watching the movie, we were thinking of the writing process. It felt as if the planning that went in executing the shot we described in the first paragraph went into the writing as well. The script writers after knowing the entire story had to chop into blocks for the past and present. They had to leave sufficient holes in the past which would be filled by the narrative in the present. Finally it all had to look convincing. That is where the director’s part comes in – to flesh out the scenes so that it looks as if the characters are realistic operating in situations out of their control. The casting helped and there is not one person who looks unbelievable. The Malayalam movie that came to our mind was T P Rajeevan’s brilliant Paleri Manikyam which too solved a murder mystery of the past in the present.

So why are we writing the review of an Argentinian movie on a Malayalam movie site? One day, some creatively challenged writer in Malayalam is going to adapt this. We wanted to write before that atrocity happened.