REVIEW 748: JACK & DANIEL

Release date:	November 15, 2019
Director:	S.L. Puram Jayasurya
Cast: Language:	Dileep, Arjun Sarja, Anju Kurian, Saiju Kurup, Innocent, Ashokan, Suresh Krishna, Cameo: Peter Hein as himself Malayalam with a spot of Tamil

A CBI officer is sent to Kerala to catch a thief. Daniel Alexander has a reputation for being the bete noir of the Mumbai underworld and since he is played by Tamil cinema’s action star Arjun Sarja, it goes without saying he throws a mean punch. His job is to ensnare Jack (played by Malayalam superstar Dileep), a Robin Hood-like Malayali who steals from the corrupt and wealthy to give to those suffering the consequences of their moral and financial corruption. The challenge for Daniel is that because Jack robs only black money, his victims never report their losses.

Daniel crisscrosses Kerala and Goa in pursuit of his designated prey. This journey takes us through Jack’s personal life, establishes him as a gem of a human being, shows Daniel being gradually drawn to this likeable bad guy on a mission and ultimately hints at the possibility of a sequel. 

Along that route we are given a lecture on how Indians do not treat Army veterans with respect – it is a measure of how ugly and aggressive the nationalism of Malayalam cinema’s northern counterpart Hindi cinema has become in recent years, that after overdosing on the latter’s insidious divisive effects for so long, I found this one-off sermon in a Malayalam film comparatively understated. It would be nice, for a change, to see an Indian film about the systemic mistreatment of Army veterans and their families that has nuance and does not sound like a tear-jerking preacher, but for now there is Jack & Daniel which is at least not crass and intentionally mischievous in this matter.

The title, obviously a play on the global alcohol brand, is an overstatement though. Jack & Daniel is far from intoxicating. A thief as a do-gooder and an affable thief duelling with an incorruptible cop have been done a million times before by cinema across the world, by Indian cinema at large, even specifically by Dileep himself, and this film has little by way of originality to contribute to the genres it occupies. It is neither clever enough nor pacey enough. The first half feels stretched, details of Jack’s schemes are glossed over and what little is revealed shows that his success is entirely reliant on the all-round stupidity of the public and those managing the establishments he targets. 

Apparently, cracking security systems in Kerala and Goa is a cakewalk. Sometimes, disguising yourself as a woman and either weeping or batting your eyelids before a man is all that is needed. 

The only woman with a respectable amount of screen time in Jack & Daniel is Anju Kurian’s Susmitha. At first she comes across as the staple young-woman-falling-for-a-man-played-by-a-much-older-male-actor prototype, later you realise the role has more substance than that, but in a scene of confrontation with Jack she ultimately turns out to be a lightweight whose only purpose in the film is to make the hero look smart. Mission accomplished.

Its man-centricity apart, Jack & Daniel picks up post-interval when the screenplay has the protagonists playing off each other instead of showing them operate in separate spaces as they largely do in the first half. Dileep and Sarja have decent chemistry between them and unlike Susmitha, at least Daniel is not shown to be an ass just to convince viewers that Jack is a genius. Add some above-average action and chases, and in the second half Jack & Daniel becomes tolerable fare.

Like the film itself, the actors are all okay – neither brilliant nor insufferable. With one exception. Saiju Kurup as a senior Kerala cop, DySP Phillipose, displays exceptional comic timing that overrides the silliness of some of the situations his character finds himself in. For the nth time it must be asked: why does the Malayalam film industry not see that this man is hero material? 

It must also be asked: what on earth inspired Jack & Daniel’s tacky Peter Hein cameo with its tributes to Pulimurugan, Madhuraraja and Baahubali? And why on earth did the reputed action director agree to feature in such a superfluous, truly idiotic scene?

In the hands of cinematographer Sivakumar Vijayan, Goa and Kerala look glossy in Jack & Daniel – pretty but lacking any individuality and character. Vijayan chooses to capture both states in extreme long shots, aerial and other frames that somehow paper over their distinctive features. The result: attractive visuals that could have been achieved by travelling to any of a million spots in the world and not particularly here. 

That is more or less the story of this film too: it lacks personality, it is forgettable, but in a year that has subjected us to the excruciating agony of watching Mikhael and Kalki, it at least offers some tolerable  timepass. 

Rating (out of 5 stars): 1.75

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	155 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/jack-daniel-movie-review-dileep-arjun-sarja-team-up-for-some-silly-unoriginal-but-tolerable-timepass-7661041.html

Visuals courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/ActorDileep/

REVIEW 674: KODATHI SAMAKSHAM BALAN VAKEEL

Release date:	February 21, 2019
Director:	Unnikrishnan B.
Cast: Language:	Dileep, Mamta Mohandas, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Siddique, Renji Panicker, Lena, Priya Anand, Aju Varghese, Saiju Kurup Malayalam

“It is not how something is said but what is said that matters,” Judge Vidhyadharan played by Saiju Kurup declares towards the end of Kodathi Samaksham Balan Vakeel. This is the film’s attempt at advocacy for persons with disabilities, which in other circumstances would have been laudable. Here though it is far from convincing since Vidhyadharan has spent the preceding couple of hours displaying a curious mix of sarcasm and kindness towards a lawyer with a stammer appearing in his courtroom.

Dileep is cast as the said lawyer, Balan Vakeel of the title a.k.a. S. Balakrishnan. And Vidhyadharan is not the only one mocking him. The screenplay does too.

A disability may well lead to misunderstandings and confusions that could be comical, but when every character in a film is contemptuous of a protagonist with a speech impairment, when even a person with empathy is shown pulling the fellow down, when the writing draws almost entirely on that element for its comedy, then an effort to appear sensitive in the finale is almost offensive.

This desire to be a little bit of everything – hateful yet considerate, loud yet genteel, crudely comedic yet backing a noble cause – is the hallmark of writer-director Unnikrishnan B’s Kodathi Samaksham Balan Vakeel (KSBV). It tells the story of a lawyer who has fared poorly in his career so far due to his stammer and lack of confidence. It does not help that his mother (Bindu Panicker) nags him viciously, his father (Siddique) is usually intoxicated by a cocktail of alcohol and drugs, and his brother-in-law (Suraj Venjaramoodu) is a selfish, manipulative jerk. The latter is a cop who drags Balan into a controversy that becomes a turning point in his life.

The crux of the controversy is a false case of sexual harassment foisted on one of the most high-profile men in Kerala. It cannot be a coincidence that the prime sufferer in this “goodalochana” (conspiracy) is Balan. This is not the first time since he got bail in the ongoing woman actor rape case that Dileep (who is charged as a conspirator in the crime) has used his on-screen avatar to promote the propaganda spread globally by misogynists that gender-sensitive laws are widely misused by women. In last year’s Kammara Sambhavam, his character, a corrupt politician, went so far as to make a throwaway remark about how his team would be free to go about their unscrupulous work if they diverted the public’s attention by having a woman slap a fake charge of sexual violence against any well-known man. 

That comment in Kammara Sambhavam was unrelated to the rest of the plot, whereas in KSBV, the false allegation is the fulcrum of the storyline. This latest attempt to build a case for Dileep in his real-life legal quagmire is self-defeating though because – and this can be said without giving anything away – KSBV ends up unwittingly making the point that men use women to misuse women-related laws. Ha. So the joke’s on you, Messrs Dileep and Unnikrishnan.

Even if you view the film without any knowledge of the context to the casting, it is laden with cinematic clichés and social stereotypes. The Common Man who transforms into Superman at the click of a finger (literally, in this case), a damsel in distress who is rescued by the aforesaid hero, a non-stop stream of potshots directed at Balan’s stammer, slapstick comedy, a song and dance centred around a semi-clothed woman that is completely unconnected to the narrative – you will find it all in KSBV.

Balan has trouble beginning sentences. When an associate called Anzar (Aju Varghese) helpfully grabs the phone from Balan to say the first word the latter is struggling to get out in one scene, it is funny since he does it without malice. So is the second time he does it. But for the most part Balan’s stammer is the subject of unfunny barbs and derision.

When listeners mispredict a word Balan is about to say, their impatience with him is unkind enough, but when they do it incessantly throughout the film, it just gets worse each time. The cruelty of KSBV lies in the fact that it is not merely portraying ableist characters, Unnikrishnan is clearly himself tickled by their meanness towards Balan, as he is tickled by the extreme misogyny in the hero’s Dad’s interactions with his Mom and the old chap’s casual violence towards her.

Aju Varghese plays the film’s most irritating character. Renji Panicker is very well used. Saiju Kurup is good, as he always is – give this man larger roles, please Mollywood! Venjaramoodu manages to pull off some, though not all, of the intentionally over-the-top comedy plus his character’s sliminess. As for Priya Anand, I don’t know why she even bothered to accept this blink-and-you-will-miss-her role. Mamta Mohandas has it just marginally better.

Anuradha Sudarshan (Mohandas) is a hapless woman also swept up by the imbroglio that has taken over Balan’s existence. At one point we are told that her father, a sketchily described random character, was confident that she would be able to crack a puzzle he has left for her because he believes she is smart. Really, Sir? All that we see is Anuradha hanging around Balan and hanging on to him while he solves the mystery and saves her life. This is particularly upsetting because it results in a waste of Mohandas’ strong screen presence.

Of course the two also fall in love. It is, after all, an unwritten rule in commercial Indian cinema across languages that at least one good-looking young woman, the younger the better, must be attracted to the hero of a film especially if he is played by a big male star, irrespective of the man’s age.

As in all such situations, the almost two decades separating Mohandas and Dileep are treated as an everyday phenomenon. What is far more amusing though is the important flashback to Balan’s college days. Can you imagine a female actor in her 50s in Mollywood being asked to play a college student for even a few seconds?

Lost in all this triteness is a rather interesting mystery, the not-bad-at-all sub-plot explaining how and why Balan began to stammer, and Dileep’s surprisingly restrained portrayal of Balan’s disability. With juvenile humour and prejudice dominating the screenplay, Team KSBV has no one to blame but themselves.

Rating (out of five stars): *1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	155 minutes

A version of this review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/kodathi-samaksham-balan-vakeel-movie-review-dileeps-unexpected-restraint-is-overshadowed-by-crudeness-cliches-and-prejudice-6135241.html

Poster courtesy:

https://www.facebook.com/ActorDileep/