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Release
date:
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March 28, 2019
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Director:
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Prithviraj
Sukumaran
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Cast:
Language:
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Mohanlal, Manju
Warrier, Vivek Oberoi, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Tovino Thomas, Indrajith
Sukumaran, Kalabhavan Shajohn, Saniya Iyappan, Nyla Usha, Baiju, Saikumar,
Shakti Kapoor
Malayalam
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In a scene
typifying the overall tone of Lucifer,
Stephen Nedumpally stands facing an armed villain. The bad guy has a gun
pointed right at Stephen’s forehead, while a bunch of others look on. Several
slow mo shots, flying fists and mundus later, the hero has snatched the weapon,
killed at least half a dozen men and with his bare hands grievously injured the
rest of his foes who came at him not all together but in batches
for his convenience as commercial Indian cinema’s satellite villains tend to
do.
Stephen, it dawns
on his arch enemy then, is no ordinary man. He is, after all, played by
megastar Mohanlal, he who is deserving of a smashing entrance, a scaled-up
soundscape and wise lines.
Devotion to the
Malayalam cinema legend is not Lucifer’s
only weakness. The film is equally hampered by a poor screenplay that fails to
take its unusual premise forward and by pretensions to a gigantic scale that
end up miring the entire narrative in clichés.
As far as
disappointments go, this one is a double whammy. Writer Murali Gopy most
recently demonstrated his understanding of Kerala politics through Kammara Sambhavam (even if it unfortunately
degenerated into a propaganda vehicle for Dileep). In Lucifer which is set against the backdrop of politics in the state, though he begins and ends with an
interesting take on the nature of evil, he flounders in between as the goal
appears to become the creation of a grand epic rather than a soul-searching
examination of the subject through relatable characters.
As if that is not
enough of a let-down, there is the fact that actor Prithviraj Sukumaran makes
his directorial debut with Lucifer.
Here is another one of his works that does not match the worldview and
intelligence he reveals in his interviews.
The story of Lucifer kicks off with the death of the
veteran Kerala
leader P.K. Ramadas, also known as PKR, resulting
in a power struggle in his party and family. Among the many players in this
game are Stephen who is the old man’s foster child, PKR’s daughter
Priyadarshini (Manju Warrier), son-in-law Bimal Nair a.k.a. Bobby (Vivek
Oberoi) and son Jathin (Tovino Thomas). In the background hovers a gun-toting
mercenary called Zaid Masood (Prithviraj himself) and a video blogger played by
Indrajith Sukumaran.
Unless the director
simply wanted to prove that he has the clout to rope in such a stellar
assembly, the casting is inexplicable. Why would you gather some of Malayalam
cinema’s biggest stars across generations, fine actors to boot, and then waste
most of them? Tovino Thomas gets an introductory shot that is worthy of a star
and a charming scene at a political rally, beyond which he has little else to
do. Prithviraj’s job is to occasionally appear, look intimidating and
disappear.
The most criminal
under-use of talent is reserved for Manju Warrier whose primary task is to
hang around. As it is, there are hardly any women in Lucifer, even in crowd scenes. Those that are there are all shadows
on the margins of the men’s lives – never taking any initiative, but instead
existing solely to be manipulated, abused, led, guided and/or saved by the men.
The biggest mystery
is why Prithviraj hauled Vivek Oberoi all the way from Bollywood for this role.
Oberoi has barely lived up to the promise he showed in Ram Gopal Varma’s
acclaimed Company in 2002. He brings
nothing to the only role in Lucifer
other than Stephen Nedumpally that has been written with any degree of care.
This casting decision comes across as part of a misinformed attempt to give Lucifer resonance in the north, towards
which end even Shakti Kapoor – long forgotten by Bollywood – has been given a
cameo, a Hindi ‘item’ number is added to the mix, and the end credits are
accompanied by another Hindi song. Considering Prithviraj’s stature in
Mollywood, one of India’s most respected film industries, the evident effort to
attract attention elsewhere is quite embarrassing.
(Spoiler alert) An episode of sexual abuse
in Lucifer called for just a little
bit more courage on the part of the writer who makes the perpetrator a
stepfather rather than a biological father, (spoiler alert ends) but the fleeting reference to communal divides
on the
political landscape and the style makeover given to
a political aspirant are all indicators of how much more this film could have
been if the screenplay had stayed focused and probed deep, if the director had
not been so anxious to impress.
Lost in a cloud of
Mohanlal-ness, pomposity, ineffectual characterisation and pointless extreme
close-ups (including one very pronounced, rather irritating shot of Lalettan’s
hand), are a luscious-looking Kerala and a fascinating premise.
Right at the start,
the activist blogger Govardhan equates Stephen Nedumpally with Hinduism’s
Mahiravana, Iblis from Islamic mythology and Christianity’s Lucifer from whom
the title comes.
Stephen himself
says at one point that the greatest fraud perpetrated on the public has been
the claim that politics is a battle between good and evil though it is, in his
view, the greater evil versus the lesser evil.
The two lines are
tied in by repeated parallels drawn between Stephen and Lucifer, the fallen
angel of Christian mythology, the one who rebelled against God, who in this
film’s universe is refashioned and repositioned as a “necessary evil”.
There is so much
that could have been done with this intriguingly frank and realistic theory on
the essentialness of evil – in politics and for human survival at large. What
we get instead is Lucifer’s
transparent ambition that overwhelms everything else in this enterprise.
Rating (out
of five stars): *3/4
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CBFC Rating (India):
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UA
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Running time:
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174 minutes
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This review has also been published on Firstpost:
Poster
courtesy:
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