Among the three flicks that I got to watch this week, except for Lenin Balakrishnan's "Article 21", the other two were a test of our patience. I fail to understand as to why would the producers even invest in such movies which barely had a credible story to narrate. Seems like such mysteries are beyond the thinking of mere mortals like us.
Pappachan Olivilaanu: "Sinto need to go to olivil for such a senseless flick!!!"
This is Sinto Sunny's third directorial venture & one in which he has penned the script as well. Well did he actually write anything? Frankly speaking, I dont understand what exactly has he written or was it his incapability to execute whatever he had written. It's a question that only he could answer coz what folded on screen was nothing more than a mishmash of many sequences stitched together.
Pappachan (Saiju Kurup) was a big mouth who constantly tried to cash in on the respect that the people had for his father, Mathachan (Vijayaraghavan); but to no avail. The movie is literally about his efforts to create an image for himself & the mess that he gets into as a result of that. I actually think that I might have made the movie sound interesting isn't it? Well, don't be fooled by what I wrote as the reality is far from it.
Sinto had no clue how to make the sequences flow sensibly from one to the other. It seemed like he was hell bent on making every scene comical & most of them fails to hit the mark. Saiju Kurup's character comes across as the comical version of Jayan from "Upacharapoorvam Gunda Jayan" & his performance was pretty mediocre at times. However, some of the others were fine such as Vijayaraghavan, Alexander Prashanth & Darshana; but all their characters were lazily written which severely impacted their effort. None of the technical aspects were worth mentioning except for maybe Ouseppachan's music.
Verdict: Hmm...better luck next time Sinto!!!
Rating: 1/5
Corona Dhavan: "Provides laughs occasionally but nothing more than that!!!"
Just like Sinto, another person who attempted to make a comic flick this week was CC Nithin with his "Corona Dhavan". This is his directorial debut and he had joined hands with Sujai Mohanraj who had written a movie based on a batch of alcohol stocked by the protagonist, Vinu (Lukman Avaran) even as the nation went into lockdown. The movie unfolds in Aanathadam where Vinu was making arrangements for his sister's wedding which included alcohol for his friends. However, the wedding got cancelled as his sister eloped with his friend before the party began. Later that night, lockdown was enforced & with everything shut down, Vinu becomes the much sought after person. Seeing that this was a situation to be milked to his benefit, he decides to play his cards carefully.
There is no doubt that the story as such had much scope for comedy, but there was evident lack of ability on the part of Sujai to create a chain of events that blended with each other. More often than not, many sequences were like isolated events whose sole purpose was to make the audience laugh. It certainly managed to do that at quite a few places. At the same time, some sections like Sreenath Bhasi's track, the drone incident (after the initial mishap) etc. were a test of patience. I dont think any of the technical aspects quite stood out. There were a lot of artists in this flick among which I felt Lukman did a decent job while others like Johny Antony, Irshad, Sarath Sabha etc were average though they did evoke laughs at times.
Verdict: The end result could have been far better if Sujai had given more thought into the screenplay as he did have a credible thread!!!
Rating: 1.25/5
Article 21: "Feel good movie that comes across as a Govt publicity campaign at times!!!"
Another director that made his directorial debut over the past fortnight was Lenin Balakrishnan with "Article 21". The primary reason why I decided to check it out was coz of the different appearance of Lena which seemed to imply that the story was quite unlike the usual ones. For the uninitiated, Article 21 A in the Constitution of India states that the state shall mandatorily impart free and compulsory elementary education to children belonging to the age group of 6 to 14 years.
The focus over here is a Tamil immigrant family that comprised of Thamara (Lena) & her two sons, Muthu (Nandan Rajesh) and Dalapathy (Leswin). They made a living out of collecting scrap & things take a turn when Dalapathy comes across a school bag that had fallen off an auto. His eyes lit up seeing the books which motivated him to seek education but their financial situation was such that it was beyond their means. At this juncture, he befriends a kind hearted auto driver (Aju Varghese) who helps him to pave a path towards his dream.
In terms of the story, Lenin has kept it quite predictable as everything falls into place without much of a hiccup. The attention to detail with regard to their hardships early on is not seen towards the latter half as it felt like everything was way too easy than it would have been in reality. The sequence that featured Bineesh Kodiyeri felt like a Govt publicity campaign & came across as rather artificial. At the same time, I do appreciate the awareness that Lenin provides with regard to the options that are available for people in the lower socio-economic strata. Coming to the technical aspects, it was handled reasonably well especially Gopi Sundar's music and Ashkar's cinematography. A special word of mention for Rasheed Ahammed for the make up work that he had done.
Lena has done a convincing job as Thamara both in terms of body language and dialogue delivery. Both the boys were also fine while Aju continues to grow in stature with restraint performances. Even the artist who essayed the role of Victor was ok while Joju as usual was good in a cameo role.
Verdict: Despite the predictability, it is still worth a worth for the feel good experience!!!
Rating: 2.5/5
Regards...Ben
No comments:
Post a Comment