Film Review:

Director : Akbar Jose
Producer : Cinema Company
Cast : Kalabhavan Mani, Sindhu Menon,Jagathy, Anand, Boban Alummoodan, Salim Kumar,
Machan Varghese, Narayanankutty, Subair, Irshad, Jose, Bijukuttan, Ponnamma
Babu, Kulapulli Leela, Seema G. Nair
Lyrics : Kaithapram, Bappu Veliparambu
Cinematography : Vipin Mohan
Music: Alex Paul


‘Aandavan' is a regular Kalabhavan Mani affair -yet another take which glorify one-man vigilant justice. And as usual with his films, this too remains unsurprising and predictable to the core. In an obvious attempt at making a formulaic masala movie, the creators come up with another that turns out far from satisfactory.

The movie has Mani as Murugan, who is more popular as 'Aandavan', a demi god in his slum, a savior robin hood who steals money from the rich to help the poor. The peculiarity with him is that he is a specialist who repeatedly steals from only one man-Parameshwara Panikkar, his sworn enemy, the local tycoon and moneylender who is there into every unlawful business, from illicit liquor to massage centers.

Panikkar had destroyed Murugan's family, years ago, getting him and his father arrested and assaulted on false claims.

Panikkar's own son Sadasivan, who is now the Circle Inspector of Police couldn't resist the brainy protagonist thief from continuing with his follies in his father's house. Murugan, who is also a childhood enemy of Sadasivan, execute the most daring and ingenuous of heists, looting the big share of money that Panikkar earns through his unlawful means. Murugan is even more particular to leave any money left after his charity activities, into the local police station, without revealing himself.

The new female Sub-Inspector, Sreelekha (Sindhu Menon) who is put into the charge of the related investigations takes up residence on the ground floor of house in which Murugan hides on nights. On recognizing Sreerekha’s paralized father, Murugan realizes Sreerekha as one of his childhood playmates.

Unaware of this friend in the attic, Sreerekha hatches plans to grab Murugan.

Meanwhile Sreerekha has to confront with Sadasivan who helps his father in his shady activities, which ultimately results in Sreerekha getting suspended from service. But, by now she has fallen for her childhood friend, realising the facts that made him a thief. Murugan has now got a lot of things to accomplish. To take on his final revenge against Panikkar and his sons and to reinstate Sreerekha into the service. How he accomplish this forms the rest of the plot.

The biggest drawback of the film is that it is highly predictable. It ends up in a much contrived climax. The last reels of the film looks like a product made in a hurry, with little attention to details, logic or story continuity.

K Gireeshkumar in the scripts has reworked a story that seems to be as old as the Stone Age, failing to give anything unique to the story lines, that the audience can take back.

Kalabhavan Mani as Murugan has nothing more to do than be in his usual self. Sindhu Menon is passable as Sreerekha, while Jagathy Sreekumar as Parameswara Panicker and Anand as Sadasivan are in their regular outings. Bijukuttan as the small-time ganja dealer Bhaskaran and Salim Kumar as the iron-man Mayankutty bring in some chuckles. Seema G. Nair is remarkable as the local streetwalker Sarasu.

In the technical side, everything is in tune with the theme. M Bawa in art direction has done an exceptional job in creating the slums, look natural. Vipin Mohan has opted for not much experimentation while Renjan Abraham in editing also is ordinary, employing innumerable white flashes..The action sequences are well-orchestrated and act as a catalyst to hold on the narratives.

The songs by Alex Paul are hummable of which, "Poonnila punchiri thookum..." rendered by Vineeth Sreenivasan has the potential to enter the charts. There is also the mandatory Mani song, which is also crisply visualized with good choreography, thankfully without an item girl.

Film Review:

Banner: Kamalam Films
Cast: Jayasurya, Kalabhavan Mani, Bhama, Jagathy, Salimkumar, Suraj Venjaaramoodu, Rajan
P Dev, Siddhique, Anoop Chandran
Direction: Shaiju - Shaji

We usually go to the movies to laugh, cry and get entertained. Reinforcing this faith in movies, without any pretensions is the new film 'Shakesphere M A Malayalam', from the debutante duo Shaiju-Shaji. Count among the high points of the movie - the whole team of comedians from Malayalam coming together in tandem, a refreshingly engaging plot lines that induce continuous laughs, good technical support, background scores and winsome dialogues. Yes, this is a film with no larger than life heroes, no loud villains or no punchlines...what you can see here is only a feel good comic escapade, presented with the needed spirits.

"The entire world is a stage and all the men and women merely players" -The plotlines of the movie follows Pavithran who follows this Shakespearean quote in its fullest. He is the award winning play wright of Jayabharathi theatres, who writes on people around him and about those he knows personally. This habit of representing real-life characters on stage earned him the nickname 'Shakespeare Pavithran.'

As Pavithran is combating a creative block, with little time to spare for setting up their drama for the new season, Kottayan Gopalan, the lead actor ,director and owner of Jayabharathi theatres convinces Pavithran go to a remote village of Kakkathuruthu. He is accompanied by a group of actors like Sugunan (Salim Kumar), and Sarasan (Anoopchandran), who are dying to take the stage by a storm and to support Pavithran to battle over his temporary slump in writing. While Pavithran waits for days without any promising themes, he comes across Alli, a young country girl, loaded with her share of grave problems. Pavithran impressed by Alli, as a gullible character who can be interestingly transformed to stage, began to scribble on her the new drama - 'Prakasham Parathunna Penkutty'. He starts to ponder over her woes and difficult situations and guides her as if he write the growing sequences of his characters on stage. But what Pavithran is heading to, is the most unexpected piece of drama that his life has never ever witnessed.


The movie has a refreshingly different plot by Rajesh K Raman, scripted by the director duo Shaiju -Shaji with support from Jiju Ashok. The movie does have clichéd characters and the typical masalas associated with Mollywood packaging. But the intrinsic humour in the writing and the immensely likeable characters wins over us, especially in the first half. The later half is a little drag, but don't takes off the liveliness of the movie, even though the intended surprise in the climax is not so promising.

With a revolting, sugary sense of comedy, the movie appears disjointed at times, also due to intense pace in the proceedings. Like the rags - turn - riches sequences in the later half, which happens in a matter of few days. But as a comedy film it is above par, with a mixed bag of hilarity, leaving us hooked up almost through the entire proceedings.

Jayasuriya is once again at the familiar territory easing through the light hearted narratives. Roma also dons a different role as Alli with spontaneity. It is also heartening to see Kalabahavan Mani, back to a humorous role after a couple of years. But 'Shakesphere M A Malayalam' really banks on the host of real stars of the movie - the comedy artists with their impeccable timing, be it in the incredible Jagathy Sreekumar as Thoothukudy Thulaseedas to the obligatory Suraj venjaramoodu as junior ONV and Salim Kumar in a hilarious role of an actor longing for animated embraces from his female leads. Anoop Chandran as Sarasan, a School of Drama product excited by the riddles of every encounters in life, is one of the best roles that he has ever essayed.

Film Review:

Banner: Fabulance Entertainments
Cast: Jayasuriya, Sooraj, Saikumar, Manikuttan, Jagathy, T G Ravi, Augustine, Maala, Bindu-
Panikkar
Direction: V K Prakash
Music: Vayalar Sharth- Alex Paul


Now it's a trend in the industry to make films on plots of friendship .Even a lot of other language films like 'Happy Days' raked in big profits from Kerala while dealing with such plots. Following this propensity for youthfulness in style and narratives, filmmaker V K Prakash has accomplished another movie made on the tender alliance of friendship and love.

As a director who has been constantly dumped down by weaker scripts, this new movie ‘Positive' also is not a big exception. But this time due credit should be given to V K P (as he is popularly called in ad circles), for coming up with a clean film sans any coarseness. Only if the screenplay were a bit well knitted, the film would have been even better.

The highlights of 'Positive' is not only the high spirit of camaraderie but also the absorbing planting of a investigative thriller module amidst the life of a group of teens, who continues with their musical band even after their studies. The action mainly gyrates around Raju (Suraj) a software engineer and his three bosom pals essayed onscreen by Vani, Manikuttan and Remesh Pisharody. Raju who plays the key board and is into vocals is supported in his every endevours by progressive boisterous Winnie (Vani Kishore), Udayan-the drummer of the band with long tresses and a 'designer beard' (Manikuttan) and Cherry (Ramesh Pisharody). Winnie's mother tries to marry her off to a Police Officer named Aniyan, but his off hand remarks on their friendship group spoils the event.

On a way back from Bangalore, Raju accidentally encounters Jyothi (Ayilya G Nair) in a bus, which leads to a transitory romance. On the day when Raju plans to introduce Jyothy to his friends of the troupe and his family, she disappears from the hostel without leaving a trace about her whereabouts. Raju is totally heartbroken following the incident.

The film which starts off blissfully cheeky with lively proceedings in the first half, songs and humor, gets more and more serious as it goes along, and suddenly changes over to an investigative thriller. This constant, changes of direction to the story, at every given opportunity spoils much of this slickly made sequences and its stylish visuals. The story has all the vital ingredients of a commercial potboiler like romance, family sentiments, suspense and action. But the scripts by S N Swamy fails to split the proverbial beans with élan, leaving us desperate to figure how the filmmaker will reach that loopy ending, after the completely unrelated first few reels. Despite its strong technical content and brilliant performances, V K Prakash finds its hard to carry the juggling act successfully with this many layered story.

All the key artists in the movie have come up with brilliant performances. But Jayasuriya as a police officer seems to be a miscast in the film, with his shallow physical appearances. It is not easy being an emerging star in Malayalam cinema because most characters you play has a benchmark set by a veteran actor. So when Jayasuriya plays a warm, non indulgent police officer, we are immediately reminded of the veteran superstar's powerful police roles. Suraj, Manikuttan and Remesh Pishadory seem perfect and natural in their roles. Saikumar is in his usual self while Jagathy who often appears from nowhere is wasted in the movie.

The female leads, Ayilya and Vani with good screen presence, do their parts surprisingly convincingly, though their characters could have been etched out more sharply.

Technically, the film offers some of the best visuals seen in Malayalam cinema in recent times. Cinematographer R Ganesh captures the spirit of the youth in every frame. Mahesh Narayanan also deserves applause for the zest full cuts that announces the landing of another talented technician to Mollywood.

Film Review:

Banner: Revathy Kalamandhir
Cast: Sreenivasan, Padmapriya, Lalu Alex, Lal, Nassar, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Bijukuttan,
Sukumari, Sona Nair
Direction: Leo Thaddhevoos
Production: G Sureshkumar
Music: Alphonse Joseph

At times, you go to movies with the great expectations. Particularly when a new director shows up with a film, in his own title below story, screenplay and dialogues, and that too directing the veterans like Sreenivasan and immensely talented Padmapriya, you have all the reasons to expect a winner. After watching such an attempt by the debutante director and script writer Leo Thaddhevoos, an erstwhile associate to ace director Bhadran, in the new flick ‘Pachamarathanalil' you are not all together knocked out by its narratives, but will feel an urge to appreciate it as a well made movie.

The film tells the story of Sachi alias Sachidanandan (Sreenivasan), a renowned cartoonist who is much popular as the creator of 'Poompatta Princess', a very popular cartoon character in a children's magazine. Sachi leads a peaceful life with his beautiful wife Anu (Padmapriya) a government employee who is much obsessed with their 5 year old daughter's studies. Their daughter Sneha, who is the cynosure of all eyes and attracts attention wherever she goes, is also the inspiration behind the creation of the cartoon character 'Poompatta'

Following a dance performance in her school, Teny, an Advertisement film maker happens to notice Sneha and invites her to play the lead in his new advertisement film which is to be shot in Chennai. Sneha accepts the offer grace fully and seems enjoying and easy going like a professional actress in the entire sets, sometimes fooling around her father who is also accompanying the child. After a couple of days, the shoot crew makes a shift to Pollachi. But on the way to the new location, the entire shooting crew finds the child virtually vanished into thin air, that too on the highways from a speeding bus! Sachidandandan, shocked at missing his daughter, tries ways to find her, but with little clues to the happening.

The drama at the highways takes a curious turn when C I Venkitachal Aiyer (Nazar) reaches the scene to investigate the case. Within a short time, he claims that Sneha is not the daughter of Sachidandandan. The film goes on to tell what is the actually behind her missing and how they unearth ways to find her.

The basic premise of the story seems to be more interesting in paper than on screen, as usual with the recent Mollywood movies. The film holds a curious resemblance to Maniratnam's classic 'Kannathil Mutthamittal' in its plot lines, even though the director Leo has tried ways to present it different. The first half of the movie is rather pacy but the second half is a tad slow with some lengthy flashbacks.

The impact of the story has been crippled by a casual narrative approach at some points. An attempt is made to make it an edge-of-the-seat thriller with the missing- child mystery and its associated suspense, maintained through out with the aid from spooky sound effects. As the story progresses the suspense element decreases, the film starts to drag a bit till the climax, where it is again back to predictable lines, offering least genuine tensions. The characters are all well etched, but the narration lacks feeling and maturity, particularly in the later sequences.

Coming to performances, Sreenivasan as Sachi is at home, presenting another character with ease and commendable restrain. He is particularly good, even though not at his best, in the timing of his witty one-liners and sounds natural all through. Padmapriya as Anu is cut out for the role, giving justice to every sequence. It is amazing the way she handles the role with needed intensity, and manages to connect with the audience. Suraj Venjaramoodu and Biju Kuttan provide the needed comic relief, playing the production controller Urakathu Jose and his manager Shivadasan.

Film Review:

Banner: Jyotirgamaya
Cast: Kalabahavan Mani, Praveena, Murali, Valsala Menon, Jagathy Sreekumar,
Kozhikode Narayanan Nair, Indrans, U C K Thangal, Chertala Lalitha, Vijayan Peringod,
Soniya
Direction: Venugopan
Production: Soman Pallat
Music: Mohan Sitar


Finally Kalabhavan Mani is back to a role, which has him in his elements, affably displaying his acting potential in 'Swarnam'. The fourth movie by Venugopan is of course, the best from the director. Based on a solid script from S.Sureshbabu, 'Swarnam' weaves a story around men enmeshed in hatred, greed and prurience. The movie reminds you of some of the oldies of the Bharthan-Padmarajan era, particularly in the plot lines and in the deft touches and tonal intricacies.Of course, this is a movie that you can definitely be with for its fine craft, directorial control over the proceedings, and stupendous performance from a talented cast.

The movie tells the story of inhabitants of Chumrampathy- a small village along the banks of the Shiruvani River, who believes in the legend of a golden treasure that lies somewhere buried under water. From the time of Aachiyamma (Valsala Menon), the oldest of the clan, many have enterprises risking their lives into the Chavukayam in search of the gold, but in vain.

Divakaran (Kalabhavan Mani) grandson of Aachiyamma, a harsh man, never believed in the mythful fable, but tried other ways to make money. Being insensitive to other's woes and needs, he was not even ready to look after his orphaned niece and wife Radha, but garnered money, penny by penny, to fulfill his objectives like buying a lorry for himself.

One day, Divakaran finds himself bare handed with all his money robbed off. This leads him to trying his luck once in the Chavukayam for gold. Even after trying for eighteen days, he couldn't fetch a mentionable amount of fortune. In this juncture arrives a black magician who demands a five year old child as a 'bali' in exchange for loads of gold that is soon to be discovered on the river banks. Divakaran's dislike to his niece, suddenly goes on a change, following this divination .Now his obsessions to wealth is set to lead him along a path, which will make him identify the locus of the original gold.

The highlight of the movie is definitely, the unassuming package of script lines, which avoids the normal pit holes, in its entire ride. In this straight forward narration of events, Sureshbabu has gracefully avoided the formula stuff, except in the finale. The director Venugopan stays clear off the regular gimmicks but showcases his skills in steering the viewer's emotions as desired.

The film has its flaws. It sometimes tries too hard to be philosophical and piousful in its dialogues and some tear jerking sequences especially with the child (Baby Nayantara) ends up sounding bogus. The logic also goes for a toss in some sequences in the later half. The film’s pace slackens at intervals, mainly due to a lesser degree of lighter moments, as the focus is more on emotional content. And the continuous onslaught of sorrow and hopelessness may sometimes exasperate you.

The film's substantial emotional impact depends largely on the performances. The smallest of cast member seems to know the job on hand. Kalabhavan Mani excels playing the hero and villain of the movie ‘Swarnam’ has created enough sequences that give a platform for his performance.

Praveena in her comeback incredibly depicts the various shades of the character with amazing ease. Her calm face with plethora of emotions, sans make-up looks up at you with frankness and honesty -- the perfect foil to the hero unidimensional hero.

Saloo George once again proved to be one of the best behind the camera, maintaining a singular dark tone throughout, suiting the mood of the movie. Mohan Sithara also proves effective particularly in the background scoring that sets the mood of the movie. No unnecessary fast-paced songs mar the tempo. Out of the five songs, there are a couple of hummable tunes.