With larger than life characters
seen in umpteen films, awful situations, melodrama and irritating
dialogues, this one mostly turn out as unintentionally funny. Shaji, who
has scripted the film as well, has made some kind of a curious
compilation of some of those already popular scenes from a few select
movies.
Madhava Menon (Sai Kumar) is the patriarch of the wealthy Chandragiri
family. This “feudal fascist” (as described in this film by one of the
villains) is so powerful that the state chief minister comes to his
doorstep to solve some political crisis and the natives in the area are
being considered his ‘praja’ (subjects). His son Arjun (Prithviraj) is a
daredevil as you would have guessed by now and the father-son duo takes
on their rivals in true heroic style.Lakshmi (Vandana) and Nanda (Aishwarya Devan) play the heroines who involve in some sort of a catfight that reminds of the Manju Warrier-Priya Raman tussle in ‘Araam Thampuran’ to get the hero’s attention.
The secular mind of the landlords, their faithful confidants, the quintessential ‘utsavam’ in the temple, the elephants, the kalari experts, the corrupt cops, the wily politicians… you name it and it’s all there aplenty. Worse still, even the dialogues are mimicry versions from the old movies.
Were the makers of this film
sleeping for a decade or so, to suddenly wake up to make this old
fashioned misadventure? That is the feeling the viewer gets while
sitting through this tiring ordeal, as it is a total misfit during the
current times. At almost two hours and forty minutes, the film never
seems to end!
With nothing new to offer,
Prithviraj looks ineffective and disinterested. Now, it is quite a
mystery on why this hero selects some pathetic movies so often in his
career!
Most of the other actors have been
cast to suit their branded tags. The less said about the two heroines,
the better and they seems to compete with each other to come up with the
worst performance.
When DVDs of old blockbusters are
available and when those classic scenes and dialogues are being aired on
TV, do we need a hotchpotch of it all? It’s a mystery how films like
this get made.
