BUDDY

BUDDY

Theatre : Aluva Zeenath Screen 1
Showtime & Date : 6.15pm, 07-07-2013
Status : Balcony no idea, FC 40%

BUDDY is the new film by debutant RAAJ PRABHAVATHY MENON. A well edited trailer and release by UTV Motion Pictures were the calling cards. Whether the movie surprised??? Lets see

Story
Two ladies - an Indian English writer(Asha Sharath) and a dancer(Bhumika Chawla) discloses their child Kunju(Midhun of Black Butterfly fame) on his 18th birthday that he was the product of artificial insemnation. Kunju founds out that his father is Manikunju Thaadikkaaran(Anoop Menon) from hospital records & meets him. Rest is one hundred times told same old wine.

Performances
This one is the film in recent times which had the best or near perfect miscasting.
Anoop Menon as Manikunju Thaadikkaaran was in usual Anoop Menon style of acting & style of dialogues with an overdose of Mohanlal. Asha Sharath looked out of place & Bhumika Chawla looked too young for the role. Srikanth was wasted. BalachandraMenon's comeback did not make any impact in this poorly written role. Babu Antony had nothing to do, so as the serial artist who played the cook role. Arun was just ok in his small role. Lal and T G Ravi in their scenes were the only better ones. Aju Varghese disappoints big time in this cliched role which was executed poorly. Anil Murali was routine. Honey Rose just for one song and one scene with no dialogues.

Songs & BGM
Songs by Navneeth Sundar were okay  only. Some of them had many old A R Rahman tunes rehashed. BGM by Gopi Sundar as usual worked especially second half towards climax.

Technical
Editing - I won't say bad, what else can be done with whatever taken and what director says. Art direction was good. Costumes by Sameera Saneesh needs special mention.

Here comes the high positive point of this movie which makes us sit till the final scene - CINEMATOGRAPHY. Prakash Kutty who debuted with Kunchacko Boban-AnilBabu movie INGANE ORU NILAPAKSHI, after a gap is back. AWESOME WORK. EVERY FRAME WAS A VISUAL WITH GREAT COLOUR COMBINATION. ACTION SEQUENCE WAS WELL TAKEN, ABOVE AN AMAL NEERAD WORK.

Script & Direction
Story & Screenplay by Raaj Prabhavathy Menon itself. A decent plot on the hangover of Vicky Donor was there. A storyline which a good director could make us engaging too. But the sceenplay was horrible. Just like Manikunju character in the movie, the screenplay also lacked a presence of mind or direction. The problem I felt was what to do till the final portion was an empty page which was filled with routine TV serial stuff. Dialogues by Bipin Chandran disappointed a lot. Is this the same person who worked in DADDY COOL??? Forced kind of newgen items couldn't make any impact in screenplay or for the movie

Direction was fine in respective scenes at times. But as a whole movie, a below average work. Action Sequence as such was superb. Certain scenes were well executed and some others in rather poor manner.

Overall BUDDY minus Cinematographer PrakashKutty is below below average

Verdict : Watch it only for Cinematography
BO Verdict : Flop to Disaster
WAITING FOR A LAL JOSE - PRAKASH KUTTY WORK SOON.

The same plot if given to Priyadarsan or Lal Jose could have made wonders.

Don't know whether Mr or Miss or Mrs, whatever Raaj Prabhavathy Menon, putting such a lengthy name in direction part and influence of english in dialogues will not help in making another Gautham Vasudeva Menon