Apart from Liju Krishna's "Padavettu", a major release that hit the screens last Friday was Vysakh's "Monster" which had Lalettan in the lead. The expectations were high after all the last time the duo had collaborated was for the blockbuster "Pulimurugan". To add to it, there were statements from the makers that it was on a subject that had not been spoken much & possessed an intriguing and thrilling storyline. Well the 'subject' that they referred to was unintentionally revealed as there were news that the movie has been banned from release in GCC due to that. Anyway, it was far from impressive & I'm not quite sure as to what Vysakh meant by 'thrilling' as it turned out to be more of a test of our patience.
Bhamini (Honey Rose) was the sole bread earner in her family which consisted of her daughter, Kunjatta (Jess Sweejan) & her husband, Anil Chandra (Sudev Nair) who had recently lost his job. She worked as a driver for a taxi service & on the eve of their wedding anniversary, she was entrusted with the task of ferrying an important client of the company, Lucky Singh (Lalettan). He happened to be a jovial & flirtatious bachelor, however it was evident that he had a ulterior motive. So what were his intentions & was Bhamini merely a pawn in his plans???
According to Vysakh, this is Udaykrishna's best screenplay & hence I was a bit hopeful after all his previous work "Aarattu" was pedestrian. Hmm...it wasnt to be, as the first half was just a rehash of double entendres that we saw in his previous work which was expected to double up as humour. Hardly anything worthwhile happens & that in a way turned out to be a positive as inevitably the second half was better coz the plot which is shown as a 'so called' progressive twist is revealed. Apart from the 20-25 mins in the climax where everything is explained, none of the previous sequences came across as engaging. I'm not going to question their treatment of the subject (which came across as regressive & in effect, causes the same negative impact that stereotypes does), coz they might not have felt morally inclined to showcase it a positive light. However, the screenplay was so damn weak as it barely had any content (at least they could have packaged it as investigative thriller) & except for the stunt choreography, the rest of the stuff was just routine. Satheesh Kurup's visuals & Deepak Dev's 'Ghoom Ghoom' track were fine though the BGM was just noise.
Yet again Lalettan is wasted in a role that he literally sleep walks as it hardly challenges him. Though it is marketed as Lalettan's movie, Honey Rose has bulk of the screen time & she has done a fine job along with Sudev Nair. Lakshmi Manchu as Durga was average but impressed in the action sequences while the others like Siddique, Lena, Ganesh etc didn't have much to do while Jagapathi Babu was wasted.
Verdict: I sincerely wish that Lalettan will become more judicious in his selection of scripts which does justice to his caliber & body of work. I presume his decision to work with LJP might just be the beginning of more exciting projects. As for this, forget it!!!
Rating: 1.5/5
Regards...Ben
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