Three Kings: "Hilarious initially but torturous subsequently!!!"

July heralded us into the second half of the year & thankfully owing to some entertaining movies in the first half the public has been flocking to the theatres irrespective of the climate, which translated into the Malayalam industry being in good health. So it remains to be seen whether the trend continues, as this week witnessed the release of "Three Kings" directed by V.K Prasad whose "Gulumaal" & "Mullavelliyum Thenmavum" had garnered decent response. With Chackochan, Indrajith & Jayasurya coming together, his latest venture promises to be a no brainer laugh riot. So will the promise be fulfilled or will the audience groan at the antics???

As Prasad has admitted, the film is inspired from Stanley Kramer's classic "Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World", which was remade in Hindi as "Dhamaal". Anywaz the film talks about the relationship of three cousins, Bhaskar (Indrajith), Ram (Chackochan) & Shankar (Jayasurya) who are the heirs to Krishnapuram family which had unfortunately lost all its glory of yester years. To make matters worse, they have been at loggerheads ever since their birth. It is at this juncture that they stumble across a person who tells them about a lost treasure that rightfully belonged to their ancestors. As expected, all three of them embark in search for it, but the question is will they locate it & if so, who will reach there first???

The film has been packaged as a no-brainer full on comic entertainer & as expected the plot doesnt seem to have much of a significance here. There are many sequences in the first half of the movie which are hilarious causing the film to more or less breeze through. However, once the second half starts the comedy fails to evoke laughs & it tends to drag, making us cringe in our seats. The music by Ousepachan was average though the picturisations of "Paara" & "Chakkaramaavin" will have the audience in splits.

Coming to performances, all three protagonists have done a decent job with Indrajith being the pick among the lot. The female leads essayed by Ann, Samvritha & Sandhya were meant to be dumb but it more or less bordered on being irritating rather than tickling the funny bone. Suraj has only a few sequences but his different get-ups evoke laughs, while Ashokan does manage to get noticed with his antics.

Verdict: The film has already created an image of being an out out laugh riot, so that will have the audiences interested. It should be able to hold its own for a fortnight or so, which should be enough to reap benefits for the producer. In short, though the second half pales in comparison, it should still keeps your spirits in check provided you dont carry any hopes!!!

Regards...Ben