Grandmaster

Directly copy from series Agatha Christie's Poirot season 4 episode 1. Very much disappointed.

In one word, a good movie with a good script flavoured by excellent direction by Unnikrishnan and class performance of the great actor Mohanlal.

The movie starts simply and had a simple intro of IG Chandrasekhar. Film takes the track without any lagging and parallelly shows the family background of Chandrasekhar. Unni did the mixing of both well, which satisfies all kind of the viewers.

Looking to the performance, Lalettan was superb as IG Chandrasekhar. Amazing performance by him. Priyamani was good as Adv.Deepthi Chandrasekhar. Narien, Jagathy, Anoop Menon,Babu Antony etc. were good.

B.Unnikrishnan,the craftsman of GrandMaster is deserved to be praised. Good scripting and excellent way of execution. Surely his career best till date. Script shows Unnikrishnan's large habit of reading. Good standard in dialogues and way of presentation. Hats off.

Music department was good. Especially the 'Akalayo ne' song. Also the BGM was good.

Cinematography was an apt one for a movie like this. Good work.

3.5/5 - Good Watch!

Mohanlal's early 90's whodunit "Mukham' directed by Mohan is one of my favorite movies, so is Mohan's "Pakshe". "Mukham" if I remember correctly was a flop, but nuances of the movie keep growing on you on repeated viewing. Though reception of the movie was lilliputian compared to K.Madhu's "CBI diary kurippu", "Mukham" trumps the Mammootty flick by tactfully meshing the two quintessential parts of a whodunit - the crime, and the mind of the investigating officer. B.Unnikrishnan's "Grand Master" does just that, and is a movie worthy of repeated viewing.

When Mohanlal finds a character that resonates with the actor that he is, he delivers sheer onscreen magic. While "Grand Master" doesn't compare to lets say "Bhramaram" (which I think is Mohanlal's role of the decade), there is a sense of calm and ease with which the actor fits into the character of Chandrashekar. Mohanlal plays his age and his physical form, and is completely at ease as he carries the movie. Anoop Menon, Priyamani, Jagathy, and Narain support well, but this is a Mohanlal movie. It's one of those movies like "Udhayananu Tharam" where after the intro scene you forget you are watching a Mohanlal movie. A well played performance which constantly dodges our attempts at getting into the head of Chandra to figure out how he is going to crack the case.

(Excerpts)

Looking at the big picture, it's a fine movie with a surprising climax at the end. But the movie was just ordinary. B Unnikrishnan had wonderful script and just directed the movie plainly as you would direct any movie. I didn't felt that adrenaline pumping effect on me. The soundtracks was exceptionally good especially the background scores, best for malayalam movies. Kinda sounds like its Hans Zimmer. And at last the villain after being caught comes up and confess all the process.. OMG.. can't we live out of this total concept of confess.. gross!! I'm sick of it. He should have tried something else to reveal the things, not this one. There are a lot better crime thrillers from Malayalam movies. And I don't think grandmaster is one among them standing tall my ratings 6/10 for ordinary direction

For a crime thriller about a serial killer, GRANDMASTER conceives a good premise but the tepid execution plays a huge spoilsport. The film is about the killing of women with the first name of their alphabets sequentially i.e. The first person who gets killed is Alice and the next is Beena and so on. Gradually Chandrasekhar(the investigative officer and the protagonist) establishes a connection between the serial killings with the murder of a wealthy man a few years ago and it's explicitly stated in the film that he had no close relatives. But for the sake of a twist in the climax, a relative is created out of thin air, and that too a pretty close one.

Apart from the poor screenplay, there aren't many redeeming qualities either. The action scenes are very haphazardly shot and have so many cuts that you don't know what the hell is going on. The overall film is shot in such a way that it gives the movie a tv-serial aesthetic. Mohanlal plays his role in a straightforward manner as the writing doesn't give him much. The film just trudges from scene to scene without creating much suspense or excitement. Even the red herrings are poorly done.