Release
date:
|
Kerala: July 20. Delhi: August 3, 2018.
|
Director:
|
Shafi
|
Cast:
Language:
|
Bibin George,
Hareesh Perumanna, Kalabhavan Shajon, Prayaga Martin, Vijayaraghavan,
Indrans, Vishnu Unnikrishnan, Sunil Sukhada
Malayalam
|
In most ways, Oru Pazhaya Bomb Kadha (An Old Bomb
Story) works off a musty template. Two young men who are lifelong
friends – check. A pretty heroine whose sole role in the plot is to exist so
that the hero can fall in love with her – check. A villain with no redeeming
qualities – check. Also in the mix are an unwell father whose treatment the
hero must pay for, and regular comedic interludes with zero relevance to the
story that are placed there for what formulaic filmmakers consider compulsory
comical relief.
But then director
Shafi threw the entire darned template out of the window and under the stomping
feet of a herd of rampaging elephants when he cast Bibin George as the leading
man of his film. George is a successful TV comedy writer and artiste in Kerala,
and co-writer of the big-screen sleeper hit from 2016, Kattappanayile Rithwik Roshan. What makes him an unconventional
choice for a hero is the fact that he was afflicted by polio at the age of one
and makes no effort to mask his very visible physical challenge. In that sense,
his presence in the film is uplifting and a landmark moment in Indian cinema.
To assess Oru Pazhaya Bomb Kadha from this angle alone
would be condescending though. The actor himself is unlikely to consider it a
favour, going by a recent interview in which he said: “I loved the process of writing… because
when I write, people will only judge me for what I have written, not
my physical abilities. I felt that I should bring smiles on their faces
than that sympathetic look.” (sic)
Oru Pazhaya Bomb Kadha is the tale of best
buds Sreekuttan (Bibin George) and Bhavyan (Hareesh Perumanna). The two have
been crudely nicknamed “one-and-a-half and one-and-a-half” by locals, Sree
because he has only one healthy leg, and Bhavyan due to his daily minimum
alcohol consumption.
Sree has always
been keen that his disability should not define him. He has been encouraged in
this by his father Mohanan (Indrans). He financially supports his family –
consisting of Dad and a sister – by working at an auto mechanic’s shop.
Misfortune strikes
when Sree and Bhavyan have a run-in with a senior policeman (Kalabhavan
Shajon). Floating around in the background is Shruthi (Prayaga Martin), a
mysterious visitor to their town who attracts Sreekuttan’s attention from the
moment he sets eyes on her. The bomb in the title enters the fray late in the
day.
Bibin George brings
a sincerity of purpose, even if not acting brilliance, to the film. And
occasionally, Perumanna’s comic timing is well utilised in scenes of unapologetically
silly humour. Most important is the fact that Shafi does not use George merely
as a source of jokes on the sidelines of the narrative, as filmmakers in the
past have done with actors who have disabilities. Sreekuttan is placed firmly at
the front and centre of the storyline, and does everything a conventional commercial
Indian film hero does – sing, dance, fall in love, fight – which is a good
thing at one level, but also what makes Oru
Pazhaya Bomb Kadha an assembly-line product that belongs to an era long
gone.
The title is
unwittingly apt. Exemplifying the pazhaya
execution of a pazhaya text is the
way two recurring motifs are used only to elicit laughs, their contribution to
the plot being zilch. First are phone calls from Bhavyan’s grouchy brother-in-law,
second is his screechy mother’s constant quarrels with their gangster neighbour.
The latter is particularly painfully grating. Both are summoned up every few
minutes, apparently in an effort to lighten the mood, though the banshee and
the don have the opposite effect.
There is no logic
to so many of the proceedings, but they are thrown in anyway because they have
been a fixture in zillions of films before this one. For instance, Shruthi is
kind and looks mortified when her friend makes cruel comments about Sreekuttan
one day. Yet, she is later shown apologising to Sree for mean remarks she says
she passed. But… but… but she did not... Well, never mind. Because a heroine
who emotionally traumatises the hero until she finally acknowledges her love
for him is mandatory in formula films, I guess the writers felt driven to weave
this senseless scene into the screenplay.
That Shafi is a
Bollywood fan is evident – boringly so – from the clichéd and repeated
references to Hindi films in Oru Pazhaya
Bomb Kadha, starting with DDLJ’s Tujhe dekha toh yeh jaana sanam in the
background when Sree and Shruthi first meet. Yawn. In
the midst of this all-round lack of originality, Vinod Illampally’s quality
camerawork and the beautiful singing of Moovandan manchottil kandappa thotte, changil kudungiya pennaana – by Vineeth Sreenivasan for Sree – stand out.
The overall standard
of cinematography in Mollywood is high, and Illampally is a master
craftsperson. He outdoes himself though in this otherwise drab film with a long
shot of a solitary Sree brooding on a bridge surrounded by natural splendour
and an innovative use of an aerial shot in which Sree and Bhavyan are seen seated
on a vast expanse of rock.
Illampally’s
frames, the milestone that has been crossed with George’s casting as a
protagonist and the actor’s conviction alone may have held up the film if it
were not for the niggling concern I cannot set aside, that the scenes of
violence involving Sreekuttan are somewhat exploitative. Then of course there is
the flimsy parallel track about Maoists from Uttarakhand, and the film’s inexorable length.
Considering that the plotline does not contain a single molecule of novelty, I
cannot think of any reason why Oru Pazhaya Bomb Kadha
was stretched to nearly two-and-a-half hours. Yawn.
Rating
(out of five stars): *
CBFC Rating (India):
|
U
|
Running time:
|
2 hours 27 minutes
|
This review has also been published on Firstpost:
Visuals
courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/OruPazhayaBombKadha/
