Lal is back- to our hearts. Review on Naran Movie

Lemme begin on this note. I am NOT a huge fan of Mohanlal. He's one of the best actors in the industry, but still I cant call myself a fan. He started disappointing me the day I walked in to watch Ustad, and since then, the only movie he acted that I enjoyed was Chandrolsavam. Unfortunately that too flopped.

So I was naturally feeling unsure when I walked into the theater. Joshi does make good movies occassionally, so I hoped that this one also would be a watchable one, at least to the standards of his Dileep starrer, Runway.

The plot

Velayudhan [Mohanlal] is a local rowdy of Mullankolli, a village on the shores of a river. He was delivered by a mother who came flowing in the flood waters, who somehow managed to keep the baby on the shore before herself being carrieed away by the currents. Velayudhan grew up as a goonda-mawali, people loved him for his kind heart and hated him for the outrageous rules he enforces in the market. He is strong as an ox and has the heart of a kid... Anybody who feels that his rules are off-hand should fight him, and defeat him, then they can have their say. That is Velayudhan's rule....

Velayudhan earns his money in the rains, when the river overflows, by swimming and roping up large trees that come flowing in the rains, from up hill. If he gets one huge tree, he will have enough to survive for a year. Velayudhan is very much attached to Kelappan [innocent] who is an accomplice of Velayudhan in his tree-roping up. Other significant people are Velayudhan's godfather [Madhu]- a landlord, Velayudhan's school days' crush Devayani [married to a drunkard Krishnan (maniyan pillai raju) ], Kelappan's daughter Bhavana, and the Villain Siddique...

The first half goes in small fights between Velayudhan and local goondas and the cold war between Mohanlal and Siddique, but second half becomes racy, when Mohanlal gets bound by promises that he would not fight anyone. His rivals thrash him up on hearing about this, and he is left with a broken hand and leg. The village becomes a mess as nobody is afraid of Velayudhan and everyone starts resorting to 'Kundayism' [velayudhan's word for goodaism], Siddique, above all. Would Velayudhan come back to the rescue of the village and his dear ones? Watch Naran for the answer...

Behind the scenes

Direction: Joshy... Nothing great, but again, ok sorts

Script: Ranjan pramod... Strong at locations. We are spared of cliche punch words from Mohanlal

Music: Deepak Dev- subtle and beautiful. All songs are definitely worth hearing over and over, especially the title song...

Best scenes

1: Velayudhan on deciding to reform himself, moves out from the house of the local prostitute, Santha.

2: The scene where Innocent asks Mohanlal to get out of his house

What else can I say? The movie has crossed all my moderate expectations, especially the cinemautography, which has trapped the beautiful scenery of hogenakkal. The underwater scenes are the best I have seen in a malayalam movie...

When you walk out of the movie, your heart will be filled with the character called Mullankolli Velayudhan, and you will be singing ''Ohoho o naran...''