Latest Malayalam Movie Reviews

James Albert has an impressive CV. With two state awards to his credit, he is the man behind the script of the all-time Mollywood blockbuster Classmates and the widely acclaimed Evidam Swargamanu. Mariyam Mukku is his directoral debut.

There are a lot of negative reviews floating around for this movie on social media but I choose to differ here, for I'm also seeing undeservingly good reviews for Picket 43, perhaps an indication that the former hasn't worked well on its PR.

One thing you realize after the very first frame of Mariyam Mukku is that you're in for a pretty film. The frames are dunked in sepia and sunny browns and it gives the film, a trippy dreamy feel that is it so warming to see this picture in motion. More of prettiness overdose as Vidyasagar's song, Ee Kadalinu Kolu starts playing. All thanks to Gireesh Gangadharan for his breathtaking cinematography.

For people in the coastal village of Mariyam Mukku, life is an everyday ordeal. Maariyan (Manoj K Jayan), Felix's (Fahad Fasil) godfather and the village's local don, influences the trade in Mariyam Mukku with his bunch of airheaded cronies lead by Felix. Maariyan has fostered Felix ever since his father's death and Felix commits all sort of bad-assery blindly out of obligation for raising him. Love piques in the heart of bad guy Felix when Salomi (Sana Althaf) when he meets Salomi.

Fahad has put up an endearing performance as Felix and Sana did well for a debutante. There is good chemistry between them in the song Ee Kadalinu Kolu which could have been exploited further to intensify the drama however their relationship which forms the essence of the story hasn't been much explored much outside that song. The film falters towards the second half, with a predictable twist in plot that fails to impress and then kind of turns into a preachy parable with clear-cut good and bad and lowly etched new characters such as Lloyd Casper (Aju Varghese).

Almost all songs have a catchy beat and a vintage aura to it and the humour is good even though scarce. But somewhere the entire movie looks like a loose reworking of Lijo Jose Pellissery's widely acclaimed Amen. Mariyam Mukku may not feel fresh if you've watched Amen before, but it's technically sound, visually impeccable and a decent weekend watch. less

Mili is a safe bet, with its neat frames, inventive narration and a beautiful Amala Paul with no makeup. Technically sound, this movie is totally different in its pace and attire from Rajesh Pillai's previous work, Traffic. The pieces of the story have been put together quiet well, the narration is smart but there is a lack of excitement and ingenuity in the overall storyline.

The story is quiet predictable for a coming-of-age drama that talks about socially awkward people. We know that it almost always ends with the reformed protagonist delivering a rock-n-roll speech, while the crowd applauds in acceptance, but that's okay, that's the easiest way to inspire the audience and give a fulfilling happy ending. But Mili despite its excellent first half rushes a bit towards the end and then stops abruptly before letting us sink in the feeling of optimism.

Missteps aside, Mili still deserves praise for getting so many things right about what it feels to be isolated, shy and experience unreciprocated love. The cast of Mili is brilliant, had the dialogues been not so bland, this movie had every potential to be a masterpiece. Nevertheless it is still worth a binge watch for the fine filmmaking, good music, acting performances and is certainly one of the best releases of 2015 so far.

Mili Nair (Amala Paul) is a lonely, introverted young woman who is too scared to say a no or make choices for herself in life. The harsh realities of becoming an adult frustrates her and she can't quiet find the courage to move out of her comfort zone where she is cocooned under the care of a supportive father (Sai Kumar) and her local guardian, Nancy (Praveena). Her safe world tumbles before her when she loses her job and gets ignored by her secret crush and hostel mates. She is left to face life alone as her father refuses to help her out. Such is a time when she finds a guide in Naveen (Nivin Pauly), Nancy's brother and he inspires her to fight the uncertainties and stay strong.

It is a delight to see this film depicts certain everyday situations in smart ways such as the use of a chat box in the frame itself to show Mili's facebook activity or a buffering screen to show Nancy's Skype conversation with her husband. Such are the little things that makes Mili a good watch despite its predictability. less

Ammakoru Tharattu starts with a sad depressing score that leaves you down in the dumps because you know that you're in for some despondent melodrama. It is a Sreekumaran Thampi film and yes the songs are written by him as well. One of those songs has been sung by K.J Yesudas and K.S Chitra, so it altogether takes you back to that bygone era, which is a good thing for the vintage lovers. But songs apart, the movie is painfully long (over 160 minutes) and a total bore.

Everyone is depressed. It starts with a song where Madhu and Saradha are shown crying over god-know-what and then as the story begins we find there is too much of misery in everyone's life. One hour into the movie, things ain't getting any better and there is more of weeping, crying and shit load of miseries.

Saradha is Sulakshana, mother of three, two of them being Sai Kumar and Lakshmi Gopalaswamy. No one in her family likes her. Not the daughter-in-laws, not her grandchildren, not even her dead husband. And two hours into the movie, not even us.

Sulakshana comes out as a super pessimist and a total drama queen. She walks into an orphanage when she finds her kids fighting over taking care of her and then there she meets Joseph Pushpavanam, noted poet and her teenage puppy love. What happens next is how Pushpavanam turns into a batman and sort out the mess in her family. If you are one of those people who likes watching Saas Bahu soaps on TV, you might probably like this. But if the thought of that makes you barf, then you might well skip this. less

In his new film 'Perariyathavar', director Dr. Biju turns his camera towards the slime and gunk of a bustling city, where numerous despondent lives get stamped beneath affluence. Denied of the basic rights to live, the destitute thrash about to stay alive, even as they are starved, abused and often left for dead. less

My first outing at the movies this year has taken off with on a real shaky note. 'Village Guys' directed by Shan is a film that does not by any scale look like a fine start, and is a sloppy attempt at film making that could be disregarded without much of a thought. less

Just one week into 2015 and I can already say that this movie will still be one of the worst movies of the year. Shankar has already ruined my year with two simultaneous disasters- Akashangalil and now Sand City. A perfect example of shoddy film making, this one teaches you how not to try making one.

Bad editing, zero lip sync and horrible acting are just half of the disaster in this movie which has no reasons to exist. It begins showing the story of several Indian expatriates working in Dubai and the story is somewhat a decent affair. But Shankar's direction, the unbelievably pathetic acting of everyone involved over shadows it.

Anand has come to Dubai in search of a decent job to support his ailing sister with the help of Mansoor. He make friends with Mansoor's roommates and the rest of the film runs as parallel subplots on how each of them is struggling in the foreign land in different ways. Mansoor's girlfriend Poornima is a waitress in Dubai and she has arrived there to pay off the debts of her family back in India. She gets into major trouble when her boss, who has a crush on her get in touch with her money lender. Together they pressurize her to pay the debt off immediately or sleep with one of them instead. Every other subplot gets linked to this in some way or the other and that's good, but only if some sensible person made this movie.

The story could be something that NRI Keralites might relate themselves to, but they are sure to get repulsed by all other aspects of its filmmaking. The movie is directed by actor Shankar and written by M.I.Vasanthkumar. Not worth your money or time. less

'6' is a torture of epic proportions.

First things first, the title of Gururaja directed film '6' has a Vedic connection. The six obstacles that prevent man from getting salvation.' Kama', 'Krodha', 'Lobha', 'Moha', 'Madha' and 'Malsarya' are the enemies within a man and '6' advocates the need for mankind to overwhelm them. But why the makers adopted film of all mediums to put across their great message. Hard to fathom. Goodness gracious, '6' is so flawed a cinematic venture that it sucks out the last drop of patience out of you, in the event of you sitting through this abominable mess. less

One word- Horrible. So horrible that the word horrible is not horrible enough to describe how horrible it was. Brutally horrible. Awfully horrible. Memorably horrible. This movie is so horrible that it will make the word horrible look less horrible. This is the dead zone of film making. And I witnessed it.

It is the story of a bunch of pretentious morons discussing a story for a movie. There is no script or actors or proper editing. Random people parrot pretentious dialogues without any emotions- If Siri could read Manorama Weekly; this is exactly how it would sound.

This is supposedly a New Year prank I believe. Either that or the director is on meth. Leo is a lame singer and lives with a bunch of other lame heads. One of those lame heads writes a movie script and decides to share it with a director who beats 'em all in lameness and we see them discussing their lame story of Amala and Anantu. Amala is a retired airhostess who falls in love with a loser called Anantu. They talk shit and sing boring songs for 1.5 hours. I don't know what happened next because the last set of people who came in for the movie left by then and I couldn't sit in the theatre all by myself. Need I say more? Oh! and there is Shankar in the movie. What a shame.

The film has been scripted, directed and edited by Rixon Xavier. Sandosh Pandit has a new rival. less

Nagaravaridhi Naduvil Njan has an unbearable length of boring existence. Don't be tricked by seeing the cast of 'Chinthavishtayaya Shyamala', this movie is anything but interesting. It isn't the script, it is the story. And a poor treatment to an already weak storyline by Shibu Balan, the director.

Sreenivasan has penned the play, by means of his familiar technique of portraying everyday miseries with a sarcastic undertone. Only that this time, it is not funny enough. Or the story logical. Even the dialogues that could have stirred some genuine laughs were dampened by its lame background score-the ones you find in old movies that cries hey-we-just-made-a-joke-here-so-you-may-laugh.

The "Nagaram" in this movie is Thrissur where Venu (Sreenivasan), an expatriate from Saudi who is back in his homeland after 30 years, finds himself struggling to put food on the table with the meagre income he earns chaperoning a city apartment.

Venu's daughter is preparing for her medical entrance and he is in dire need of money to buy a med school seat when she fails to clear the test on merit. He is reminded of an old piece of land he had bought in the city years ago and decides to sell it to raise capitation fee. The story starts as he sets out to locate his plot in the new city along with Davis (Innocent) his dealer, only to find that people have now turned it into a garbage dump.

126 minutes long, Nagaravaridhi never rises above its banality and despite the presence of veteran actors like Sreenivasan, Manoj K Jayan, Innocent, Bheeman Raghu and Sangeetha, we often find ourselves being taught lessons of patience more than waste management which is supposedly the movie's preachy theme. I'm going for 3 since I rated Aamayum Muyalum with a 3. This one is better than that but still bad. less

8.20 attempts to be a thriller with difference. It is curious for a movie to have a title like '8.20', as it gives intimations of something different to the viewer. Well,the movie does have a rather interest inducing basic plot. It is based on a particular element and it is its crux. Infact once that element is known '8.20' will disintegrate as a movie. It belongs to the thriller genre for sure and if some of the build up scenes and customary portions were handled with bit more felicity it would have looked better. less

Bombarded with Priyadarshan's signature chaos cliches towards the end, Aamayum Muyalum is duller than its original. less

On the very outset, let me warn you that this movie is not meant to please your logic, so you may well keep your brains outside and get in for the ride. I'm going to ignore the illogical plot, people surviving massive waterfalls, mythological characters living in a palace in the 21st century, Malayalam speaking Kannadigans and all the Saas-Bahu costume logic. Instead I'm going to judge this movie solely for its entertainment value. One doesn't mind a colorful masala entertainer provided it delivers what it promises to do- "entertainment". And that is what Vaishak Rajan's supposedly comedy- entertainment flick- 'Cousins' fails to do.

Bad jokes, repetitive storyline and an annoying Kalabhavan Shajon are all that 'Cousins' have in stock for you apart from its senseless script. The movie is about four cousins- Sam, Georgy, Tony and Polly who set off for a leisure trip to the Kerala-Karnataka border in order to help Sam recover from his memory loss. On their way, they get abducted by a royal family from the countryside who happen to have a backstory with Sam and this builds up the plot for the rest of the movie.

The sets for this film are quiet colorful for a Mollywood movie and the makers seem to have spent some heavy bucks on the costumes. Cinematography was okay but it felt like those sets deserved a much more graceful treatment by the camera. Despite the big budget claims, none of its songs are catchy enough to be binged on for long and Gopi Sundar's background scores are surprisingly distressing. However watch 'Neeyen Vennila' for the gorgeous Vedhika Kumar and her lovely ghagras if that means something to you. Kuchacko Boban, Indrajith and Jojo did fine doing whatever the script demanded out of them and the leading ladies -Vedhika and Nisha Agarwal looked pretty onscreen in their long dreamy lehengas but totally messed up the acting part. Add to that some lip sync bloopers and toe-curling PJs and you have the perfect entertainment disaster to celebrate this Christmas with. What a missed opportunity! less