In Good Spirits.. Review on Tips on Malayalam Movies of 2005

The current year (2005) has been a promising one for Malayalam cinema. It is on a recovery path from the financial crisis and dispute between the artists’ and technicians’ associations, which had jointly resulted in a standstill in the field almost an year back. The two mega stars MohanLal & Mammootty have comfortably sustained their supremacy and visibly dominated the hit charts. When the two big guns fire it cannot be a modest time for the industry. The sensational event of the year has been the return of the belligerent angry cop to the silver screen – Suresh Gopi as BharatChandran IPS.

The following are my picks of the year (till October, in the order of their releasing dates) :

UDAYANAANU THAARAM directed by debutant Roshan Andrews has been one of the major box office hits so far. Scripted by actor Sreenivasan, the movie cast includes MohanLal, Meena, Mukkesh & Sreenivasan himself. It tries to portray cinema within cinema – a simulation of real life inside in the tinsel world. A thoroughly entertaining movie with reality coated in humour (the typical Sreenivasan act). Great matured performance by MohanLal and hilarious sequences between Sreenivasan & Jagathy. Meena looks gorgeous than ever before.

Sathyan Anthikaud made his presence felt with a small, simple, sensitive creation of his – ACHUVINTE AMMA. The movie illustrates two sets of relationships – first between a mother and her only daughter, the daughter and her boy friend. Not many characters in the movie and the main three are played by Urvasi, Meera Jasmine and Sunil. Well-designed screen play by Ranjan Pramod, overall good performance by the cast especially Jasmine. Altogether enjoyable family movie – Sathyan hardly ever fail to live up to his reputation.

When MohanLal and Renjith teamed up after 4 years (since RAAVANAPRABHU) the expectation was sky high. This worked against CHANDROLSAVAM which just managed to break even only. It’s a different movie from Renjith, not in the lines of NARASIMHAM or RAVANAPRABHU or any of his earlier action flicks. The basic theme of CHANDROLSAVAM is romance. Treachery, misunderstanding, revenge.. all come in the background. The songs are appealing, and picturized beautifully. MohanLal and Meena forms a lovely pair – it’s their fifth movie together. I rate it as a pretty decent movie, and believe it deserved better luck. It was wrongly marketed.

BHARATCHANDRAN IPS was an acid test for Suresh Gopi – the super star who had been in the dark for some years now. He couldn’t ask for a better comeback platform than this. The movie received an overwhelming response and is still running in some of the releasing centres. Even though it is only a dwindled parody of the 1994 super hit movie COMMISSIONER, the movie has what the audience wanted to see – Suresh Gopi taking the gun again and disgorging Renji Panicker’s thundering dialogues with conviction. B IPS is actually a two man show – Suresh Gopi & Renji Panicker (story, screenplay, dialogues, direction, production).

The two Onam releases NARAN & NERARIYAN CBI are competing neck and neck for the top spot. Both are running in packed houses nearing 50 days in all the releasing centres. The former stars MohanLal and the latter has Mammootty in the lead role. Such an intense contest between the two pillars of Malayalam cinema is happening after too long a time (usually there would be an inverse correlation between the collection of their movies when released simultaneously).

NARAN is satisfying all classes of audience alike, a feat MohanLal movies in recent years failed to achieve. The credit should go to Ranjan Pramod whose script blended perfectly MohanLal’s larger than life image with his down to earth roles in the past. From a none-too-extra ordinary theme director Joshy has fashioned a visual treat. MohanLal gives his heart out for the perfection of his role.

NERARIYAN CBI features Sethu Rama Iyer, the CBI official enacted by Mammootty for the fourth time in 17 years. Being a murder mystery, the movie has the ingredients to keep the audience thrilled all the way to the climax. Unfortunately the climax (when the solution is revealed) is weak and the solution is unconvincing. Mammootty scores in his celebrated character. Subtle variations in the branded CBI back ground music adds richness to it.

It has been an unfavourable phase for Jayaram and the younger generation actors including Kunchacko Boban & Prithvi Raj. CHANTHUPOTTU has relieved Dileep. There are a few other run of the mill commercial successes also, including Mammootty’s THOMMANUM MAKKALUM & THASKARAVEERAN, Dileep’s KOCHI RAJAV, Kalabhavan Mani’s BEN JOHNSON etc.