CHRISTIAN BROTHERS

CHRISTIAN BROTHERS

Theatre : TVM Sreekumar
Showtime & Date : 5.45pm, 20-03-2011
Status : Housefull

For the first time I have seen a movie with 2 censor board certificates as CHRISTIAN BROTHERS & CHRISTI AN BROTHERS for both halves of the movie. Hypes were sky-high as the movie was a multistarrer by Joshi-Udayakrishna-Sibi.K.Thomas team after the mega blockbuster mass masala entertainer Twenty-20. This time too, the team has come up with a somewhat same genre one, but not that impressive one.

Story
Kunnel family featuring Kumaran Thampy(Vijayaraghavan), his sons played by Parunthu Jayan, Hariharan Thampi(Bijumenon) who is Asst Commissioner of Police & son-in-law played by Subair- kills village Thahasildar played by Jagathy Sreekumar who is the brother of Varghese Mapla(Saikumar), an ex-service man, for not helping them for illegal land activities. Varghese has 4 children-Christy(Mohanlal), Joji(Dileep), Lakshmi Gopalaswamy & Kanika. Joji who went to Italy to become a priest falls in love with Kavya Madhavan, who is the daughter of Home Minister(Devan). Kavya gets kidnapped & Devan seeks Christy's help to retain her. Christy is now a highly paid police informer in Mumbai after he was asked to leave from home by his father. Christy saves her. Later police corners him as a murderer. Though he escapes in first attempt, later Joseph Vadakkan(Suresh Gopi) traps him. Then enters Andrews Bandra(Sarath Kumar) to kill Chrsity. Rest is a cat & mouse game laced with family sentiments in between.

Performances
Mohanlal as Christy was an action role for him after a long time. He performed well what he was given & in some scenes we can see Mohanlal in late 80's, especially in scene in which he says "Njan chaadum Sir". Other than this scene & some light moments in between, he is just for punchlines & action sequences. First half belongs to him. In second half, he got sidelined eventhough his character has got some punchlines, fights & emotional sequences. Those ended up as cliches. Dileep was wasted. He has got very few scenes in the movie. In first half, he was just okay & in second half, he had a few scenes. SarathKumar in cameo was also wasted in a not so well developed character with very scenes. He would have effectively used in action sequences especially in climax. Saikumar, Jagathy Sreekumar, Anoop Chandran, Devan, Santhosh Jogi, Kalabhavan Shajone, Suresh Krishna.....had nothing much to perform. Suraj & Salimkumar failed to evoke any laughter. Vijayaraghavan, Bijumenon, Parunthu Jayan, Subair plays routine vllains, nothing special. All of them were not a perfect match for the heroes.

We miss SPADIKAM GEORGE here who was a perfect villain for Mohanlal & SureshGopi.

All the heroines were just to add star value. Kavya Madhavan had a song in which she looks fat & few scenes like Shreya did in PokkiriRaja. Lakshmi Gopalasamy was usual. Lakshmi Rai was for skin show I think. With a single dialogue & 2 songs she offers nothing other than glamour show. We can see Lakshmi Rai as topic of VANVEEZHCHAKAL programme in Asianet News soon if she is planning to do similar role in another 5 movies. 

Kanika was the best among the female leads. She did her part well.

The real show stealer was SURESH GOPI as Superindentent of Police-Joseph Vadakkan. He got the role with various dimensions. Though the script makes him fail in first half, in second half he simply scored-especially scenes with Kanika, SORRY-THANK YOU sequence & all.

Songs
Songs were tad above average eventhough lyrics were bad. Picturisation of all three were below average. Sayyave song was an unwanted one in the movie. BGM was loud at parts & not that impressive.

Technical
Technical side offers nothing new other than what we have seen in similar flicks of same genre.

Script & Direction
Script by Udayakrishna-Sibi.K.Thomas had nothing new to offer. It's a rehash of what the duo had done before. But did a commendable job in making the story into a multistarrer. The script works till the PokkiriRaja climax sequence included here. After that script had no idea how to proceed I think. Climax was horrible - an action sequence where heroes kill villains who will be there in a single place in between things to get exploded & to be broken into pieces. The best scene & best dialogues in the movie was in SureshGopi-Kanika scenes though it reminded me SureshGopi-Samvrutha Sunil scenes in movie Vairam. The dialogues in which both scores saying like I expected Thanks & I expected Sorry was surprisingly refrehing one in the movie. At that point I just thought whether I was watching a movie by VASANTH or GAUTHAM MENON. The so called twists were not that impressive & movie proceeds in very much predictable way. Its the multistarrer label which makes the movie works. Direction by Joshiy was racy in first half, but second half drags a bit compared to first half. Climax was a big letdown. Joshiy is the only director in malayalam cinema who updates himself with current trend, but the making of this one lacks freshness to make audience feel something fresh. The movie proceeds as a 90s movie only other than camera & editing gimmicks.

Overall a not so well made mass masala entertainer

Verdict : Strictly a one time watch

BO Verdict : Considering the budget, I dont think it'll cover the production cost.

It'll be the primary choice now for movie goers as there are no big opponents & movie entertains to an extent.

Movie is treat for Mohanlal fans as the actor returns to a mass hero role delivering punch lines.

If a person watch the DVD of the movie I'm sure he'll finish watching this 2hr 55 min movie in less than an hour & 15 minutes.