God's Own Country

If you have watched Fahadh Faasil's "Friday," Nivin Pauly's "Neram," or even Indrajith's "Paisa Paisa," you will know what to expect from this film which happens to be a a mixture of all these film plots woven together to tell a story so random and commonplace, you end up wondering why you opted to watch the movie in the first place.

I can bet that you thought Fahadh would shine with his charm portraying yet another significant, meaningful role; so you decide to give it a try. But trust me, he shares as much screen space as his supporting actors like Lena or Srinivasan or Lal, and to tell what? Nothing much other than throwing currency notes as if he were in some modern Indian fairy tale. And if you think of Isha Talwar as your single cause for giving it a try, I suggest you pay attention or you may not notice her with the blink-and-you-miss role she portrays. Mythili has more to enact than the hapless Northerner.

The 2 hour long movie basically is a caper about different characters whose happenings of a day tend to intertwine. No prizes for guessing, but the climax is a happy ending or it would be more germane to say that the climax is made happier, you know, just to give the conclusive feeling. As a matter of fact, the whole plot is fabricated: the writers thought of few characters viz. a guy leaving no stone unturned to get his incarcerated wife out of a Dubai jail, a poor, hapless man trying to save his daughter from death, a high-brow rape case involving a politician, etc.. Then the writers sketched a map of some Kerala city and threw these characters to play. The end result: every single character meets each other in some point of time in the film. A bag full of cash exchanges few hands, crime happens, a girl is molested, crime happens, few exaggerated stunts are performed, again crime happens, few chase sequences, some boring twists and the plot goes on…

There is not an iota of newness in any of the factors, let it be character development or narration. The makers perhaps tried to give the real impression of what Kerala state in actuality is, against the famous notion of "God's Own Country" expression, but they fail miserably because showing how corruption is rampant in the nation or the lack of potable water to people or lack of govt. jobs to skilled youngsters – they don't prove anything. But I was a tad thrilled, I can say, because of its average screenplay. But, then again when you try to add humor to such serious subjects, you just negate your own credibility.

Direction & cinematography is fine and so is the BG score. But the placement of the score was horrible. And what were 2 rock songs doing between the scenes? That is way too unprofessional. Some good action scenes and cast performance makes me wanna rate it an average 46%.

BOTTOM LINE: A rather futile attempt in speaking many things at once without a drop of filmmaking finesse. You may have a look if fast-paced, thrilling potboilers are your thing. Do not hesitate to skip if you are story-critical.

It is a great movie. A few parts are exaggerated, but the storyline, the actual struggles of the characters, and the overall plot is good. And as for performances, Fahadh Faasil has done a wonderful job as the struggling husband and father. Isha Talwar does not have a very long role, so don't get fooled by seeing her name in credited cast of the film on IMDB, as she only appears in flashbacks and the climax. But her role was important to convey the story of Fahadh's character properly, and she made an impact as well. (There is a mild reference to Thattathin Marayathu in the movie, which is probably why her presence makes sense.) Sreenivasan and Lal have done great. Mythili's performance was very good. The rest of the supporting cast have done great too. As for the script and direction, it is overall good. Just one point: they have exaggerated in a few places, while some places need more detailing. Such as the scenes with Manu and Asha. In the end, after Manu gets the money, we directly see him and Asha celebrating their daughter's birthday as if nothing happened, as if Asha had not been close to spending 15 years in jail. How did he give the money when the family of the dead man was acting stubborn, how did they reunite, how did everything happen, nothing. Heck, nobody even refers to the fact that she was arrested, which seems pretty absurd. I mean, one second you receive the money and walk into the hotel and the next moment you're at home and it's all fine! There, I feel that they should have given some more details of what happened. Otherwise it's a very good movie. I would love to see this remade in Hindi. It would be better than the useless films that Bollywood is producing right now.

Verdict: Very good performances and good movie. Should watch.

Complete waste of time! They crammed way too many scenarios in this in a messy way. What's up with all the car accidents? Laaame! One of Fazil's worst movie, I watched it because of him thought it would be great like his other movies. I have a headache watching this!