Sunday, April 5, 2015

Forever..Always..NEVER!

This is not a review of the latest flop in Malayalam movies, but my views on why it is such an agony and disappointment to watch the greats fall from their pedestal. The movie is being advertised as the dream combination of Mohanlal + Sathan Anthikkad + Manju Warrier, but it seems like only one of them really went into the movie knowing their jobs while the other two merely marked their presence without being really necessary to the movie and thus failed to stamp their unique trademarks.

Firstly about the one who was essential to the movie and literally breathes some life into the movie- Mohanlal does his best to raise an ordinary character, plot and dialogues to remarkable levels. Even when he is repeating previous trademark lines, it seems new and original. His acting and comedy however remains underutilised in a story that is so ordinary.

This is where I am so disappointed as Sathyan Anthikkad fails to bring together comedy, trials and tribulations of a divorcee and family bonds in a believable story. The plot has a lot of unnecessary elements right from the "evil" CEO of a construction conglomerate, the "cruel"husband, the elderly couple in the neighbourhood, the perfect mother, the new task oriented editor-in-chief and sad hints of a love triangle. It is definitely the fault of the script-writer that the movie is so lame, but when Sathyan Anthikkad lends his name to a film, the fault must be laid at his feet.

Finally, my biggest personal disappointment- Manju Warrier. I was deeply irritated by the lameness of her first come back movie. This one is just slightly better and that is because her character has a minimal role in the movie and could have been done by just about anybody. There was little to mess up, very few scenes for her and even fewer dialogues. Perhaps it is rustiness which has made her dialogue delivery clearly artificial while expressions have improved a little bit, maybe the effect of so many dance scenes squeezed into the movie.

There are a few who deserve a good word in this movie. Innocent and Lenna, whose roles are totally irrelevant and filled with pointless dialogues do justice to their job. Finally, a word about the audience- the movie is being welcomed with both hands not because it is remotely good, let alone great, but because there are simply NO alternates in this holiday season. There are no other movies that we can watch with our families- parents, children, siblings and grandparents together- and this makes 'Ennum Eppozhum' a superhit. So it is not just the greats that have fallen from their pedestal, but malayalam movies as a whole which has in turn forced the audience to settle for far less than what they have got from these greats.


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