Friday, March 23, 2012

THE KING & THE COMMISSIONER

THE KING & THE COMMISSIONER

Dear friends, I will be reviewing this movie in a bit different way. Its because personally I was a Shaji Kailas fan watching his movies in 90s who introduced a new style in presenting each scene giving more prominence to visuals especially closeup shots. He is the only director who inspired all the others in the previous & future league with making style. You may find traces of dialogues of Shaji or Renji movies in this review. Please adjust readers.

Theatre : TVM Kripa
Status : Balcony Full, FC 99%
Showtime & Date : 2.15pm, 23-03-2012

Joseph Alex & Bharath Chandran  -  two powerful characters penned by Renji Panicker and framed by Shaji Kailas in the 90s with THE KING and THE COMMISSIONER, both were superhits. Almost 17 years later Renji Panicker is once again teaming up with Shaji Kailas, both striving for a box office hit. Shaji after a series of flops & Renji after not so impressive Roudram. When both characters together & the team unites, expectations were there to an extent keeping the past few years' record of the lead actors & the technician & the scenarist. What really happened??

ദാ, ഇനിയങ്ങോട്ട് വരുന്നതെല്ലാം കിട്ടിയ അവധി ദിവസം വീട്ടില്‍ അടങ്ങി ഇരിക്കാതെ മൂന്നേകാല്‍ മണിക്കൂര്‍ കൂട്ടിയ ടിക്കറ്റ്‌ നിരക്കില്‍ അതും  റിസേര്‍വ്  ചെയ്തു  ഈ ..........നു തല വെച്ച ഒരു സാധാരണക്കാരന്റെ വേദനയും രോദനവും അമര്ഷവുമായി കണ്ടാല്‍ മതി , കണ്ടേ  പറ്റൂ അങ്ങനെ , ഇനി അങ്ങനെ കാണാന്‍ ബുദ്ധിമുട്ടുള്ളവര്‍ ഇനിയങ്ങോട്ട് , കൃത്യമായി പറഞ്ഞാല്‍ താഴോട്ടു എഴുതിക്കൂട്ടയെതല്ലാം വായിച്ചു ബുദ്ധിമുട്ടണം എന്നില്ല .



Story 
The very same old wine as old as Mount Everest. Why they are not thinking of something else?
Something that may disturb the law and order of the country happens.
Hero enters the scene.
Hero may/may not have some relationship in past with the person who got murdered.
There will be a influential protector for him.
He will receive orders from the top to investigate the same on special interest of that person. 
Next Hero enters.
Heroes starts the great mission to find the villains who are introduced to us as cold blooded villains from scene one.
Fights Dialogues Fights Dialogues
INTERVAL
Again Fights Dialogues Fights Dialogues
Dialogues Dialogues Dialogues Dialogues....Dialogues * X
In between the person who asked to start investigation asks to withdraw that. Then Dialogues Dialogues
Till someone special for the person closer to the investigative team gets shot & killed the same said before post interval happens endlessly.
Once that happens, heroes gets ready for the final round of fireworks
In the end a bomb blast.

Do you have an extra spine to sit & watch this 3.15hr so called  political epic drama? Then this one's for you, Grab your tickets before the movie leaves the cinema halls.

Performances
Mammootty once again plays Joseph Alex, this time except the first few minutes in intro scene, Joseph Alex seems to be tired. Though delivers dialogues at every junction of the movie, the dialogues & the delivery by the actor, both lacks the fire & naturality as in the original. Suresh Gopi for the third time plays Bharath Chandran, this time he is IG though the title mention him as Commissioner. He is the saving grace of the movie at times. Though intro scene was a bad one & the rehash dialogues couldn't create any impact, the dialogues in second half especially the ones with Saikumar are the only positive I can mention about the second half. But we'll never feel like this is the same Bharath Chandran we have seen in previous two flicks. May be because we have seen SureshGopi  playing these 100 times.Still a dull performance with badly written dialogues. Nedumudi Venu as scientist getting murdered was bad with bad English language though he plays the chief of some intelligence department. Devan again as Shankar in THE KING was just ok. Saikumar imitiating NarendraPrasad in Ekalavyan(he is playing disciple of that character) in looks was a poorly written baddie character failed to create any impact. Rajiv Krishna as Pakisthan military officer was good in looks. Janardhanan should be given a Minster rank for playing the role of a minister this much times in movies. Samvrutha was an unwanted character in the movie, so as KPAC Lalitha. KPAC Sudheer, T P Madhavan lots and lots of artists in small roles were there in cameo roles. Jayan was good in looks as main baddie. Sanjana, Vyga lots of female in limted roles were there.

The person who needs a special mention in the movie is serial artist BIJU PAPPAN who played a good cop role in the movie assisting Suresh Gopi, awesome dialogues creating laughs & good action moments, watchout the scene in which he captures a culprit at railway station.

BGM
Rajamani though rehashed the original, it didn't worked to that level it worked in original. At times, BGM was too loud too. A bad work from Rajamani.

Technical
Cinematographer was framing Shaji Kailas's shots. All three didn't do any special work. Watch Chinthamani Kolacase to see how Shaji uses Rajaretnam in an effective way as a cinematographer. Editor was sleeping I think, especially in second half. Some one should have waken him up while editing with a cup of tea to slice the movie to shreds so that the viewers won't yawn or tirelessly wait for the debacle climax to be happened on screen so that they can run out from the halls soon. For this crime atleast I won't spare you. Makeup was bad and different at different parts of the movie

Script & Direction
Renji Panicker is still in 90s I think considerin g the framework of the movie. He should have adopted something new atleast in presenting the scene on script. The intro scene of Joseph Alex was a good one with minimal dialogues and smooth dealing by the character with others. Soon everything became the same old unwantedly boasting, verbal megalomaniac character shouting at the baddies. Remembet still the baddies wait for the heroes to complete. Who told you that using bad words in between the dialogues will work at this 2012 too. When SureshGopi tells that once or twice, people clapped, after that that too was a boring one. WORST SCRIPT BY RENJI. Eventhough Praja was a bad one, now I understood its none other than Mohanlal, his screen presence & master craftsman Joshiy Sir made it watchable, Dubai too had a good set of dialogues. Badly written script altogether. Hope you will come up with something fresh & new next time.

Shaji Kailas, if you dare to make another movie, I think people will hunt you down. ഈ പീപ്പിള്‍ എന്ന് പറയുന്നത് ദാ ഇവനും ഇവനും ഇവനും പിന്നെ ഇവനും ഇവനും തെണ്ടി ഇരന്നപ്പോള്‍ ടിക്കറ്റ്‌ എടുത്തു കൊടുത്ത അവനും അവനും പിന്നെ ദാ ബുക്ക്‌ ചെയ്തു കണ്ട എന്നെപോലുള്ള പാവങ്ങളും ഉണ്ടായാല്‍ You just don't have the right to to react എന്ന് പറഞ്ഞു പോയാല്‍ Please realise its just not because of anger towards you. Its because the love, the respect everything you acquired by making a good set of movies in the past. We still have hopes in you. I won't say that you should change the track. You should change the way  you are conceiving scene. Concentrate on script, leave whatever you had done in the past, don't go after remakes. Think of what new you can do other than keeping the frames of hero introduction scene first.

Verdict : August 15 is a classic, as it won't give give you headache after watching
BO Verdict : Flop after an initial

Many people were keep on asking, when will the movie end as the second half was endlessly going with nothing new in kitty to offer. Simnply scenes to deliver dialogues. Before we had names like Mohanthomas to rmember. As the names of baddies are all hindi names that too spoiled the show

Grab the DVDs of THE COMMISSIONER, THE KING & THALASTHANAM, still these 90s flick works.

B UNNIKRISHNAN could have done a decent job than Renji Panicker here. Atleast he would have made Samvrutha a negative character with some code word like EAGLE, BEEJUM, MUSAFIR, MEERASPA.... 

Saturday, March 17, 2012

ORDINARY

ORDINARY

Theatre : TVM Kripa
Status : Balcony Full, FC 70%
Showtime & Date : 11.30am,17-03-2012

Ever since the first poster of this movie was seen on 24th Jan 2010, I was very much impressed by the way it was designed. 
Finally movie started shooting towards end of 2011 & movie released today. A very impressive starcast, good songs, smart picturisaton of songs & awesome cinematography in those, smart posters everything added much to the pre-release hype of the movie. Whether movie was able to meet the expectations?  Lets take a look.



Story
IravikuttanPillai aka "E Ravi"(Kunchacko Boban) dreams of a political life. But he was forced to join as a KSRTC conductor after his father. His first posting was in an ORDINARY service from Pathanamthitta to Gavi which has Sukumaran(Biju Menon) as driver. The rest of the story is life of Iravi & Suku in Gavi & people there.

Performances
The smart combo - Kunchacko Boban & BijuMenon steals the show. Kunchacko Boban as Iravi was safe in his hands as it had some freshness watching on screen and the energy level too was high. BijuMenon as Suku driver who is alcoholic was wonderful with witty dialogues. The Palakkadan slang was superb. Be it comedy or sentiments, action or romance both shines in their own style. Kunchacko Boban was given enough dialogues & situations in script to score as a mass hero where as BijuMenon was provided with witty oneliners & a sad background for sentiments which worked out well with both.The climax action sequence in which both of them blocks the main villain was awesome.The best taken action sequence frame I have seen in recent times.

Asif Ali as Bhadran seems to be a miscast. He had nothing to do in first half. In second half, he was just shouting & smiling. Repeating the same expressions every time created boos in theatre. He is still what we have seen in Apoorvaragam. Jishnu was fine as Jose mash. BabuRaj again rocked as Vakkachan the Gaviboy in first hal, in secon half he was absolutely missing. Ann Augustine is another person who should be given an application form to an acting school along with Asif Ali. In song sequnces & dance steps she was wooden. Debutant Shritha was just okay only. Dharmarajan will make us laugh. Lalu Alex, Raghavan, T P Madhavan, Vaiga did their parts

Songs
Lyrics were writtenby Rajeev Nair(who is also the producer of the movie). Lyrics were fine & simple, catchy too especially Sun Sun & Enthinee MizhiRandum. Vidyasagar once again is back in form. Sun Sun & Enthinee are already topping the charts. Superb music & awesome picturisation. Thechippoo song was situational one though it makes us remind of Vidyasagar's composition of Sundariye song in Oru Maravathoor Kanavu at times.  Opening song Chenthamara was beautiful with graphic titles. Suryashalabham by K J Yesudas was a good situational one picturised with awesome visuals.. BGM was good at parts.

Technical
Another hero of the movie - cinematographer Faizal Ali. The beauty of Gavi was well framed in the whole movie. Movie was a visual extravaganza. Editing by V Saajan was good in first half, needs some trimming in second half. Art Direction was good. Costumes were fine.

Script & Direction
Script by Nishad Koya & ManuPrasad had a nice thread & had a good start too. But the story was too cliched to be presented in second half which is about an hour is a bit too lengthy. First half had enough nice moments though predictable. Dialogues were Superb & witty ones. Second half of the movie falls into the cliched line which we have seen in similar lines & the flashback episode & twist could have been something else.
Direction by debutant Sugeeth needs special mention. Though a debutant, he handled first half as an experienced one as a racy one. But second half could have been better. The flashback episode & climax could have been a lot better. Also the casting of Asif Ali was a wrong choice. Action sequences were well taken. If second half was made with same energy of first half, this would have been a great entertainer.

Overall a super first half & tad above average second half

Verdict : ABOVE AVERAGE
BO Verdict : HIT if promoted well & will be in theatres in coming weeks along with biggies



The dialogue which rocked the theatres

Chackochan to Sritha : Kutty, aarodum parayillenkil njanoru sathyam parayaam, SOUTH INDIAYIL ENGLISH SAMSAARIKKUNNA ORE ORU CONDUCTOR NJAANAANU