After having endured the torturous "Cousins", my hopes were now on Priyadarshan's "Aamayum Muyalum" to herald the holiday season with some good unadulterated humour. From the trailer itself, it was pretty much evident that this was the remake of his own "Maalamaal Weekly" which I had really enjoyed. With a much talented cast at his disposal, I presume this would be better...but will it still endear to the audience who had watched the "so-called original"???
Since many of my friends would be familiar with "Maalamaal Weekly", I don't feel that a detailed account of the storyline is warranted. However, for the benefit of others; this is a tale which happens in the fictional village of "Gowlipady" located somewhere along the border of Karnataka & Kerala. Most of the villagers were farmers which meant their livelihood depended on the unpredictable monsoons inevitably forcing them to pledge their belongings to the rich & inconsiderate land lady, Bhandaravathi (Sukanya). Things take a turn in this poverty ridden village when Kashi (Nedumudi Venu), the lottery ticket seller learns that one of his clients had won the jackpot of 5 crores. Greed creeps into his mind & he schemes a plan to usurp the winning ticket. But things weren't as easy as he had hoped.
More than a year has passed since Priyadarshan's previous venture "Geethanjali" had hit the screens & failed to create ripples at the box office. As most of us are aware, most of his movies are rip offs from either Hollywood, Bollywood or Malayalam; the latter dependent as to into which language he is making the movie. As in "Maalamaal Weekly" (in turn a copy of "Waking Ned"), the histrionics does evoke laughs at quite a number of junctures. However, the length of the movie takes a toll on the audience as it lags considerably in the second half which Ayyapan Nair should have taken care of. As for other technical aspects, M. G Sreekumar's music was average while the BGM though fine was severely restricted which would have otherwise made the movie much more engaging.
Though promoted as a Jayasurya movie, he is actually one among the lot & delivers an average performance in the limited screen space provided to him. The same hold true for his female lead, Piaa Bajpai as well. In fact, Nedumudi Venu & Innocent are the lead protagonists and both of them have done a commendable job though I would have to admit I preferred Paresh Rawal's performance over Nedumudi. The same goes for Harisree Ashokan as well who didn't quite match upto the performance essayed by Rajpal Yadav. As for the rest of the cast, all of them have given a far better performance than the cast in "Maalamaal Weekly" be it KPAC Lalitha, Nandhu, Sukanya (reminded me of Sukumari in "Thenmavin Kombathu") Mammukoya & Anoop Menon.
Verdict: The film will definitely bank on the lack of biggies at the box-office & though it wont have an initial as humongous as a Lal-Priyan combo , it should still have the producer smiling. It is fair to state that it is a far cry from the Priyan films of yester years but still it has something about it to make us laugh at times. In short, wont hurt to give it a try!!!
Rating: 2.25/5
Regards...Ben
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