One of the most profitable movies of 2022 was Vishnu Mohan's "Meppadiyan" which was bankrolled by Unni Mukundan. Hoping to repeat the trend, this time around he decided to join hands with debutant director Anup Pandalam for "Shafeekinte Santhosham". The posters & trailer seemed to indicate it as a feel good movie & hence I decided to give it a try. However, it turned out to be rather disappointing & not because of the lack of effort from Unni but rather because of an extremely weak storyline.
Well the responsibility of the script also falls upon Anup & I was genuinely surprised about its central plot as it was just too flimsy. Incidentally, the protagonist goes through a whole lot of emotional turmoil as a result of that. Unni essayed the role of Shafeek who worked for a UAE based firm & as the movie unfolds, he is preparing to fly back home for his wedding. As a token of gratitude for his well being, he got a gift for a doctor who had helped him in the past. Little did he realize that it would have a huge impact on his life for no obvious fault of his.
The template of the movie is almost similar to many movies that we had in the past whereby we have a protagonist who has a heart of gold but then ill fortune hits him with an iron fist. It certainly begins in a lively manner & the humour also worked out initially courtesy of Bala's dialogues that were reference to his real self. But as it moves along, we get the impression that the director couldn't do much as his script barely had much content & made a run time of less than 2 h feel a tad too long. On the technical side, both Shaan Rehman & Eldho Isaac did a decent job with their music & cinematography respectively.
As I mentioned earlier, Unni has done a fine job especially in the emotional segment in the climax while Krishna Prasad (as Shafeek's father), Sminu Sijo & Shaheen Siddique did their parts aptly. As for the rest like Manoj K Jayan, Bala, Rahul Madhav etc, they were average with Divya Pillai & Athmeeya Rajan barely having much to do.
Verdict: Having watched the fun filled promotions & lively trailer on YouTube, I definitely expected the movie to be far more engaging. Anywaz Anup's script lacked credible content which significantly handicapped his directorial efforts. In short, the box office returns are unlikely to give santhosham to Unni compared to "Meppadiyan"!!!
Rating: 2/5
Regards...Ben
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