Movie Review: 

Cast: Arun, Padma Kumar,Arjun, Anjali, Devipriya, Harshan, Govind Sudheer, Sabitha Jayaraj
Direction: Jayaraj
Production: Jayaraj
Music: Vinu Thomas

 
 
After the super hit ‘Four The People’, expectations were naturally high about the new avatar of the four vigilante college students, who were always there to help the ordinary man by punishing unjust people. But in this poor sequel to the big hit, the viewers are left in the dire streets with the same old wine in a new bottle story line and powerless iconoclasm of the protagonists with negative thinking of eliminating the wrong doers.

In the new version, the heroes have turned out into territorial gangs with determinant distinctive symbols, even uses Che Guevara in all their proceedings, including style and color of dress, and hand signs. As we are used to watching heroes in these movies, which has also ultimately resulted in our disability to perceive the actual courage of real people. Above all that, the moral and political viewpoint is the most confusing point that the director needs to explain to the people, in person.

This film which opens brilliantly with heavily toned visuals, good title roles and acute camera angles begins with three of the four protagonists of Four The People-Sebastian, Shafeeq and Iyer getting out of jail after serving three years for the crimes committed in the first part of the trilogy. The
fourth one played by Bharath is supposedly killed by the police in their earlier encounter. This time, every close members associated with them urge the trio, to play safe evading the violent roads as they used to be. They continue with their studies but for long can’t keep mum to the necessary evils they find everyday, around their society. Finally they reinvent themselves killing the state minister who sold much of the state to international mafia.

Now termed ‘Of The People', they venture into the jungle ala their hero Che Guevara, sets up an interactive website, and operates on their laptop taking complaints from common folks and exterminating the wrongdoing big guns wearing the Guevara type dress code. The chief minister of the state, under big political pressures, appoints an officer Harishankar, to grab the trio but in a short time he realizes that the common man are always on the side of 'the gang’ and he being a righteous guy, change sides operating as a person from the force for ‘Of The People', who let them know about the possible evil doers inside the government machinery and the initiatives of the government to capture them..

The film showcases everything that happened in the political arena in the last few months -- whether it is the demolition drive in Munnar, the pathetic roads of the state and the Pathibel incident, ever venomous speaking devaswam minister and his remarks, real estate mafia and land bank concepts, the recent faris interview episode of a leftist Tv channel or the infighting in the ruling coalition suppressing the good intentions of Chief Minister.

The director in the race for creating a safer hit have never looked on to the chances of complex social problems that may appear due to the persistence and proliferation of such youth gangs who get excited with these type of affairs on screen. Jayaraj, with the film has once again brought to fore his lack of stands in any of the societal issues by boomeranging between all type of ideas and beliefs in his past few films.

Even though the film tells a lot about political atrociousness, the narratives don’t inject any kind of vigor asking you to clap for the protagonists, but made lame by the amateurish dialogues by Shreekumar Shreyas (particularly that of 'Of The People') and incompetent and sometimes indifferent performances from the majority of the cast, including Harshan as Harishankar and the actor who plays the D G P Rajasekhar. The protagonists too appear plastic with singular emotions maintained all through without discontinuity. Govind as Mani Sharma, Nancy as TV reporter and Nedumbram Gopi as the C M are saving graces in the acting departments.

Thanu Balak makes good use of this opportunity behind the camera, but the editing with multitude of cuts and effects seems overdone. Debutante musician Vinu Thomas creates a couple of better tunes, but don't give any big help to the narrative flow of the movie (as Jazzie's music has done with the first of the trilogy). Moreover the same backdrops of Boats (vallam) and lorry used in the musical video type visualizations are not refreshing enough to capture our interests.

The film may find it hard to operate itself for more than a few weeks .But I suspect the producer -director himself will be more than happy if the movie does such a rounds for a similar time. It is high time, Jayaraj need to look out for any better scripts and regain his magical touch with innovative ideas.