Latest Malayalam Movie Reviews

T A Razak's other screenplays also had this enormous amount of drama, but in those movies there were some solid performers who added life to the characters and situations created by the writer. The major drawback of the film was the performances. less

When the majority of the films these days focus on materialistic side of love, I missed the pure form of love that was portrayed in the 80s and the 90s. By pure love, I meant the couple would wait and have patience to get married or even prepare to lose their lives. There were no "break up" words or "you don't deserve me" kind of stuff. The fight to overcome the obstacles and unite was missing in the current gen films. Ennu ninte moideen was one such rare movie that portrayed pure, clean love.

Two people fall in love and for god sake its the 1950s so both the familes are against their love. To add to their misery, they belong to different religions so its a strict no no. How long can they wait is the movie all about? The check here is that the girl is under house arrest and how they manage to keep the spark alive is something interesting to see. And will they finally get married is the climax, which is heart wrenching to say the least.

I liked the script and the screenplay, though its slow paced and literally crawls, it feels like a slow poison, which slowly grows on you. Though the director took efforts in giving depth to the scenes post love, he somehow missed a trick to show how they actually fell in love, the courtship period, that would been a lot of fun. How did their love get so deep that they wait for so many years? I also liked the characterization of the women in the movie. Be it the heroine or the hero's mother, they are portrayed as strong willed women who have their own opinions even in the 1950s.

Cinematography was such a dream. The color tone was perfect and it was like magic. BGM was soul stirring and helped to bring our the emotions in every scene. But I honestly felt, it was getting repetitive especially when the film is around 160 minutes. No arguments on the editing side because the film was slow paced and it gave the audience enough time to soak into the love that's portrayed on screen.

Prithviraj is amazing. His eyes can speak and convey the love. He is such an amazing performer. Parvathy was equally good especially in the emotional scenes. She brought out the pain and agony so easily on screen. Their chemistry was pretty good to see, though they don't have much scenes together, their verbal/emotional chemistry was enough to show how much they are in love.

Overall, Ennu Ninte Moideen is a must watch for its genuine portrayal of unadulterated love in the 1950s. Its definitely slow paced but drags you slowly inside and after a point, you would pray that the couple must unite in the climax. Its one of those slow classics, so do give it your time. less

On screen, Dileep was good in his character. In a way Josutty utilizes the actor in him impressively. The down to earth phase and the matured phase of Josutty were portrayed nicely by the actor. less

With an ensemble cast on board with good experience and comic timing to their credit, the tale of thieves had a good flavour. They have all done similar roles in the past and it wasn't a surprise to to see them enact their respective roles. less

Balachandra Menon seems to have also put in his life's experiences into the movie. There are moments of warmth in it. But the script abound with cliches, which is its undoing. less

Asif Ali's maiden production venture Kohinoor is a decent heist movie with life at its core. The movie is Asif Ali's second collaboration with Kili Poyi director Vinay Govind. The actor-director duo manages to carry forward the same level of energy and enthusiasm shown in their first attempt less

Releasing here in Tamil Nadu a week after its release in Kerala, Kunjiramayanam certainly was not set out to take itself too seriously at any point. We have all witnessed many great movies in Malayalam such as Vadakkunokkiyantram, Chinthavishtayaya Shyamala, Thalayana Manthram and many more with one of the most ingenious artist of our times, Sreenivasan, in the lead roles. All these movies had a message which was conveyed in the best way possible along with some impeccable comic timing from all the actors involved. These movies proved to be a benchmark in Mollywood. They are still appreciated and watched for the way in which the serious tones of the movie were executed pragmatically.

Directed by debutant Basil Joseph, and starring Vineeth Sreenivasan and Dhyan Sreenivasan, both sons of the veteran stars, one cannot help but notice the way in which both of them carried the same charm that their father did. Especially Vineeth Sreenivasan, who purposefully imitates his father in most of the scenes and walks away with all the laurels. The next in line for best acting here definitely should go to Aju Varghese who plays Kuttan, a mentor to the gullible Laalu (Dhyan Sreenivasan). Being recognised widely for his role as Abdu in Thattathin Marayathu, Aju Varghese has definitely carved a niche for himself. His simple 'mind voice' reactions, pep talks for Laalu, and that particular scene where he mistakenly gets caught for stitching a blouse out of a police uniform has everone in splits.

Kunjiraman's mother(Seema G.Nair) and her brother Vasu(Mammukoya) fight and split over the lamest of reasons and openly announce that their respective sons will get married to a better girl than the other. However, some sort of a curse befalls the people of Desam and Kunjiraman becomes the reason everytime.

These curses are not what you expect and even when the background music turns all eerie and scary we know something really silly is going to ensue and it sure does. There is a cameo by a well known star and the climax ends on a hilarious note with the star just having to bite his lips to make us all laugh.

Songs by Justin Prabhakaran are gratifying. Scripted by Deepu Prabhakar, Kunjiramayanam, though having no relation with its title is a simple and endearing tale about the people of Desam, a place where superstitions and gossips rule the everyone. It also ironically indicates how many menfolk of Kerala, are more worried about alcohol than their own lives. There is a particular scene where a person carrying a bottle of 'salsa' falls down and he hopes that his wet shirt is because of blood and not the broken bottle. Perhaps this was that little message that they try to convey afterall.

Go watch it for the pure two hours of fun that this movie is. It will have you smiling like an idiot for the most part. less

The movie started out with Stanley Kubrick's quote, "If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed". You realise that this was some sort of a warning right from the moment the movie starts.

Prithviraj Sukumaran produced this highly crazy, nonsensical, spoof like gangster flick and also decided to act in it for the sole purpose of introducing something different to Malayalam cinema. This is definitely not the kind of difference people are expecting. With Malayalam movies garnering attention from whole new strata, "Double Barrel" comes as the biggest disappointment of this season. The quirky, retro style, limitlessly (un)funny situations that the makers of the movie tried to create falls flat. Head first, face down. The premise, situations, and crew are all there, stacked and loaded, but the writing turns out to be the greatest flaw of this story. The posters, teasers and trailer of the movie clearly gave people an idea of what to expect, but, the minute the movie starts we all realise that this isn't going to be one bit of what was expected. Lijo Jose Pellissery's craziness seems to have reflected in the script. Abhinandan Ramanujan's camera work, is by far the best aspect of this movie. The bullet shots, haphazard explosions, antique rooms, barren lands, everything comes alive and at the same time makes you feel so bad for having wasted them all on this. Prashanth pillai's score, although exciting and peppy, doesnt help the audience one bit.

The biggest Villain of this story according to me is the laughter that the actors share with each other on-screen. Whenever two of the characters look at each other, I sunk deep down in my seat and had to prepare myself with dread for those five to eight seconds of seemingly never ending guffaws. The Villain's right hand here are the shoot out scenes. In addition to showing people get shot at, anarchic explosions from nowhere and bombs being thrown like tomatoes at la tomatina, there should have been some sort of a reprise in the form of humour. What you get is a series of repetive, completely unfunny scenes such as a big guy laden with guns and ammo always turning up late for a shootout. You can predict almost all the dreadful scenes and that is what makes things worse. I could overhear a kid sitting in the back row muttering, "Now she is going to ask him to turn the music on, now there are going to be some explosions".

The story revolves around two diamonds, named Laila and Majunu, one as yellow as a fire, and one as red as the colour of blood. (Believe me, that is just one out of a thousand times you are going to hear that phrase, if you have still decided to watch the movie). Pancho (Prithviraj) and Vinci (Indrajith) are handed those two precious diamonds by a man named "Don" which have no value separately, but are worth 100 crores together. The diamond is also being searched for by other gangs and how all of them come together forms the rest of the story, or does it? I became too exhausted to follow what was going on anyway. I still haven't been able to figure out why Arya chose this script for his entry into Mollywood. He has visibly struggled to lend his own voice to the character.

There are so many parallel storylines running at the same time, and the suspense factor about how all of them converge at one point, fails too, because they never do. This gangster flick required a twist and it is indeed presented with the actor saying, "Here's the twist you were all expecting". Lijo Jose Pallissery did not realise that off-the-wall crazy stuff alone could never do the magic. This sort of a script requires humour, a lot of it. That is where he fails, miserably.

Armed with one of the most iconic cinematographers Santhosh Sivan as the producer, whose touch could be felt in almost every frame, Lijo could have given a head shot with this Double Barrel, instead the shot takes a rebound and misses the target, by a very long distance. less

From the word go, 'Jamna Pyari' is a laugh riot. While the opening song complete with its Thrissur slang captures attention, as the movie progresses, Kunchako Boban and co makes sure that there is no lag in the narrative. less

Time and again, the narrative takes a dig at the contemporary political and social scenario of Kerala. CP Swathnthran played by Mammootty is at the crux of the movie as he, with his innocent act, reveals some insightful thoughts. less

When Mohanlal and Ranjith decided to team up after ages for an action-thriller, the expectations were sky high. Have they lived upto it? Well... Yes and No! Loham starts on an extremely slow note and ends up testing your patience for the first 25 minutes. One expects Mohanlal to arrive at some point in the first ten minutes, but Ranjith just keeps us waiting and waiting with a lot of unwanted emotional scenes that just drag on and on. But once Mohanlal arrives the movie picks up and gets deeper into the story. Ranjith promised the audiences a different Mohanlal in this movie so has he kept his promise? YES AND NO! First of all Ranjith must be appreciated for generating an interesting screenplay that keeps up hooked in some parts of the movie. Although some scenes are boring and lack magic one can clearly make out the efforts the ace director has taken to come up with something different in the commercial format.

It is no easy task to cater a movie to both Mass and Class Audiences. Ranjith succeeds in this to a huge extent by bringing out good performances from his star cast. Mohanlal doesn't deliver anything new in Loham but still manages to perform his role effortlessly. If you like Mohanlal in an intelligent, smart and funny role with MASS then Loham is sure to please you. Siddique also has a meaty role to perform and although his character has negative shades it is not the stereotypical villain role. Ranjith has crafted Siddique's role in such a manner that it brings out one of his most sophisticated performances. Andrea has nothing spectacular to contribute but fits in well with the storyline. Veteran actress KPAC Lalitha also has a prominent role in the film. Although her role is quite short, she sure makes her screen presence felt with a captivating and powerful performance. The rest of the characters in the film are just adequate enough for the storyline.

On the technical side, the songs are quite misplaced and don't add any value to the film. The BGM and the screenplay however more than make up for it. Although the film follows quite a different format Ranjith has ensured that the film has a decent amount of substance mixed with the MASS factor of Mohanlal to make it a complete entertainer. Even though the trailer revealed the basic plot, the audiences are still in for a lot of surprises and Ranjith fills it up with a lot of suspense and twists to make it more interesting. The screenplay is quite complex and requires some patience to follow but this makes the overall film much stronger. Malayalam directors are known to make some of the best movies in Indian Cinema and Ranjith does not disappoint us with Loham. Although Loham isn't a perfect film it paves the way for new generation commercial cinema. Our neighbours from Kollywood and Tollywood can definitely take some lessons from Director Ranjith and Malayalam Cinema on how to make a good action thriller without the usual stereotypical elements. The climax of the film is quite fun and has the complete Ranjith brand all over it. Ranjith has done a decent job in delivering a commercial entertainer that meets the sensibilities of the new-generation audiences.

Overall, Loham is a decent one time watch but could have been much more if the ace director had focused on creating a more convincing and interesting screenplay. less

Rasputin tends to tap what is being misconceived as an inexhaustible reserve for film production - youths craving to bed a woman. less