REVIEW 745: UNDER WORLD

Release date:	Kerala: November 1, 2019 Delhi: November 8, 2019
Director:	Arun Kumar Aravind
Cast: Language:	Asif Ali, Farhan Faasil, Mukesh, Lal Jr, Samyuktha Menon, Muthumani Malayalam

Under World’s keenness to be grand and imposing screams out of every cell of its being. It manifests itself in the grandiose lines its characters utter and the angles the cinematographer favours while shooting them. In the end though, the film is as empty as the character played by Mukesh, a septuagenarian politician in jail on corruption charges and from whose words it appears that he is in control of the world he left behind: his ultimate fate proves that he is, in truth, an all-bombast-no-intelligence kind of fellow. Like Under World itself, he amounts to nothing.

Asif Ali here stars as Stalin John, a hooligan and a petty criminal with an inflated sense of self-importance. Farhaan Faasil is Majeed Abdul Rahman, a ruffian for hire. The two end up in the same jail where Mukesh’s Padmanabhan Nair is lodged. Initially, they clash but soon become unlikely allies primed for an assignment from Nair. Lal Jr is Solomon, in whose custody Nair left the Rs 500 crore he filched for which he lost his freedom.

Apart from some atmospheric background music and one slickly executed mobike chase, Under World has little going for it. Ali, Faasil and Mukesh are earnest, but the writing of their characters is too superficial for them to make a lasting impact. So sketchy are they that you deserve a prize if you can make out why Stalin’s lawyer Padmavati (played by Muthumani) cares so much for him.

For the record, Padmavati is the only woman with a notable presence in this narrative. The charismatic Samyuktha Menon from Theevandi is criminally wasted here in a minuscule role.

There are a few seconds here and there when it feels like Under World may perhaps lift itself out of its ordinariness to become something more than a waste of time. Such as when a fugitive loses his mother who he loves and realises that the mere act of attending her funeral is a risk. Or earlier when he sits negotiating with a young woman who becomes collateral damage in a cheque bouncing case against him. Or in the otherwise unscrupulous Solomon’s affection for his wife and child.

Writer Shibin Francis does not have the depth to flesh out these thoughts though. The only nice thing that can be said about the writing is that Under World is not sickening, crude and prejudiced like other recent films of this genre such as The Great Father starring Mammootty, Mikhael starring Nivin Pauly and Kalki starring Tovino Thomas.

Even the one instance when it tries to shock with its violence is almost laughable because of the rubbery look of the severed supposed human limb shown on camera. When Solomon chops off a man’s hand in Stalin and Majeed’s presence, we are given not one, not two, not three but four close-ups of that hand (correct me if there are more), in addition to other shots. Again in the name of realism I suppose, earlier when a companion of Majeed throws up after drinking, the camera stands bang in front of him, giving us a clear view of the puke emerging from his mouth and his vomit-covered tongue. Uff.

These instances of pretentiousness suggest that the single genuinely memorable moment in Under World happened by accident. When a policeman commits an act of unspeakable violence against an important character about half way through the film, instead of moving near plus embellishing the sound design to underline what we are witnessing, the audio chooses not to be exploitative, the camera moves away and we are given a distant overhead shot as a man steps on another’s spine and a torso caves in. It is a moment that made me freeze with horror yet did not feel voyeuristic.

The rest of Under World shows a complete lack of imagination and implies a desire on Arun Kumar Aravind’s part to join the club of masala directors to which Haneef Adeni belongs. Even the title is unimaginative, and the random splitting of the word looks like a last-ditch effort to salvage it. Call it Under World or Underworld if you will, either way it is under-done.

Rating (out of five stars): 1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	160 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/under-world-movie-review-the-shooting-of-an-act-of-unspeakable-violence-is-the-only-imaginative-moment-in-this-generic-asif-ali-starrer-7632411.html

Visual courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/ActorAsifAli/

REVIEW 732: FINALS

Release date:	Kerala: September 6, 2019 Delhi: September 20, 2019
Director:	P.R. Arun
Cast: Language:	Rajisha Vijayan, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Niranj Maniyanpilla Raju, Maniyanpilla Raju, Muthumani, Tini Tom, Nisthar Sait, Sona Nair Malayalam

“Each bicycle I have owned has been a loan my father has taken, each medal we earn is to pay back loans to our families, our people and banks.”

These moving, profound, poetic yet practical words are the highlight of a speech delivered by national cycling champion Alice Varghese to a small community gathering in her home town Kattappana in Idukki district. At this point in the first half of the film, it seems that this young woman – wise beyond her years yet charming in the way she copes with the uncertainties of youth – is the protagonist of the new Malayalam release Finals. She is dynamic, she is an achiever and she fights enough battles to make her a captivating heroine in a full-length feature. As long as she and her coach/father are the centre of the action, it is smooth sailing for Finals.

Writer-director P.R. Arun seems not to have recognised that he has a good thing going with his initial focus on Alice, her widowered parent Varghese’s and her clashes with a corrupt state sports establishment, Varghese’s single-minded devotion to his only child, her blossoming romance with her life-long friend Manuel, and the callousness of a system and a society that threaten to throttle talent every step of the way. As the many turns on Alice’s path play out, Arun has a firm grip on his narrative, never allowing its appeal to lag despite the languid pace that only serves to underline the contrast between her busy career and her beloved, visually beautiful, sleepy birthplace. Her heart is in Kattappana but the world is the stage she aspires to be on.

The storyline and storytelling during this phase – bolstered by Sudeep Elamon’s gasp-inducing cinematography and Kailas Menon’s melodic song Parakkaam (Let’s Fly) in Yazin Nizar and Latha Krishna’s voices – are engaging enough to overshadow occasional glitches such as the awkwardly cast and written cameo of a Sikh sporting official/coach in north India.

And then at the halfway mark, something strange happens. A dramatic twist of fate alters Alice and Varghese’s lives forever, but instead of staying with the girl through a potentially riveting thereafter, the narrative virtually discards her and from then on suddenly becomes about Manuel and Varghese.

It is tempting to wonder – arguably uncharitably – whether this happened because Manuel is played by the film’s producer Maniyanpilla Raju’s son Niranj and that Daddy wanted a platform to showcase Niranj Mon’s talent. More likely though is the possibility that Alice’s future was just too challenging for Arun, that he actually did not know what to do with her after the interval, and so he chose the easier option in which she is done and dusted and vacates the spotlight to the two gentlemen.

This is not to say that Niranj lacks charisma or that Manuel is an unworthy hero (neither is true) but that Finals lacks focus. If it is meant to be a film about Alice, Varghese and Manuel, then there is just no excuse for why Manuel is so marginal pre-interval or why Alice becomes next to irrelevant post that. Besides, in the second half, the languor that initially served the narrative so well becomes a camouflage for limited substance. The volume of the background score too is used to fill in much blankness, over-stressing every single emotion, every challenge, every tear, every sigh and every breath to wearying effect.

Niranj Maniyanpilla Raju needs a script with greater heft to pull off a second half that rests largely on his shoulders. He does the best he can, but considering that even a seasoned artiste like Suraj Venjaramoodu (playing Varghese) is stretched to breaking point as the script starts wandering all over the place, perhaps the youngster deserves a long rope before we judge him too harshly here. Point to be noted: he does have a pleasant chemistry with Rajisha Vijayan.

Going by the text plates in the end, Finals seems inspired by a real-life sportsperson. The big regret following a viewing of this film is that it squanders its early gains headlined by Rajisha. The actor has grown noticeably as she has journeyed from her performance as a child-woman in Anuraga Karikkin Vellam (2016) and a woman-child in this year’s June to the woman that she is here. She does not deliver Alice to us in mere broad brush strokes, but pays equal attention to both the bigger picture and the little details – like that fleeting absent-minded cracking of the knuckles as she addresses a gathering.

The most endearing aspect of the leading lady’s performance is the manner in which she juggles her character’s maturity with the inevitable hesitation that comes from her awareness of her limited life experiences. My favourite scene in Finals is the one in which she seeks her father’s counsel before making a move in her romance with Manuel. Her matter-of-fact question to Varghese and his unflinching response convey, within seconds, their closeness, her openness to advice from Dad and his common-sense approach to parenting. There is warmth, believability and sweetness in that scene. This then is what Arun fritters away as he pretty much washes his hands of Alice through the second half of Finals. The road to cinematic ordinariness is paved with persons who had good concepts that they struggled to flesh out, especially well-meaning men who find the idea of a strong woman appealing but don’t quite know how to deal with one.

Rating (out of five stars): **

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	122 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/finals-movie-review-rajisha-vijayan-sparkles-till-the-narrative-sidelines-her-and-wanders-away-with-itself-7379161.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10019402/

REVIEW 594: UNCLE – MY DAD’S FRIEND

Release date:	April 27, 2018
Director:	Girish Damodar
Cast: Language:	Mammootty, Karthika Muralidharan, Joy Mathew, Muthumani, Kailash, Ganapathi, K.P.A.C. Lalitha, Suresh Krishna    Malayalam

In so many respects, the conception, writing and execution of Uncle: My Dad’s Friend is brilliant. Director Girish Damodar’s film is startlingly honest in the way it grabs men in the audience by the collar and demands that they introspect about their hypocritical attitude towards women – protective of and fearful for the safety of the ones they love; casually disrespectful and lascivious, if not contemptuous towards the rest.

Joy Mathew’s writing is brutally frank in its assessment of ugly notions of masculinity that pervade our society and nurture these double standards. Considering that misogyny is intrinsic to so many contemporary mainstream Malayalam films, especially those headlined by Uncle’s star, this is a refreshing surprise.

Uncle stumbles repeatedly though by strewing bizarre red herrings around to cause us to make certain assumptions about Krishnakumar, the story’s Uncle played by Mammootty.

In the opening shots, as the credits roll, a violent mob vandalises property in a picturesque hill town. Soon, we see Shruthi (Karthika Muralidharan) standing on the street with a backpack. She is waiting for transport, perhaps a bus, and we can sense her unease when men sidle up to her with questions.

Already the air is thick with foreboding. Already as an audience member, I am worried for her. As a woman, I am doubly distressed, because I have been there a zillion times. The manner in which Damodar conjures up these feelings in just seconds is remarkable.

A car stops. The heart stops. But no, this time it is not a creepy stranger, it is Shruthi’s Dad’s buddy. Krishnakumar Uncle offers to drop her from Ooty where they are to her home in Kozhikode. And so the film’s journey begins.

Most of Uncle’s running time is spent cutting between Shruthi and Krishnakumar’s road trip through mountainous forest terrain on the one hand, and on the other hand, her parents back home. The mother (Muthumani) feels reassured of her girl’s safety since she knows KK to be her husband’s friend. Yet the husband Vijayan (Joy Mathew himself) appears inexplicably troubled by the news of the company his daughter finds herself in.

We soon figure out why. When the film dwells on him, it also repeatedly cuts to a group of men somewhere nearby, drinking, discussing women loosely, speculating in crude terms about the woman KK is with at that moment.

They are a disgusting lot and those early scenes are designed to other them, giving women viewers a sense of comfort in the conviction that they are not the kind of men we would spend time with – not my husband, my father, my boyfriend, my brother, my pal, not any man I love. Or are they?

(Spoilers ahead)

The mind freezes over when the narrative switches to a flashback and the painful awareness dawns that these are, in fact, men who move among us. Shameer Muhammed’s editing of this portion is so unfussy, the shift so discreetly done, that we do not detect it until we spot Vijayan and Krishnakumar on screen in that same repulsive gang, and Vijayan – gentleman, gentle husband, Shruthi’s darling Daddy – is the one using the most vulgar language to describe KK’s sexual partners, as the men all appear to live vicariously through their bachelor friend’s promiscuous ways and his particular talent for hooking much younger women.

These passages are unnerving because of their everydayness. These men are not killing or raping women, they are not indulging in any form of physical violence, yet their lightly spoken words – reminiscent of the sexist, casteist sport in Sanal Kumar Sashidharan’s Ozhivudivasathe Kali (An Off-Day Game) – mirror the visceral hate harboured by men who do. And they are people like us. They are our husband, father, boyfriend, brother, pal. They are the men we love.

Vijayan cannot tell his wife or child why he distrusts KK, because it will mean revealing a side of himself he has hidden from these women whose love and respect he values.

(Spoiler alert ends)

When it is with Shruthi’s parents and her father’s gang, and in the horrifying realness of a crowd scene later on, Uncle is an extraordinary film. The quality dips when it is on the road with Shruthi and KK though, because that is when we get transparent efforts, too clever by half, to heighten the suspense around their fate.

Shruthi’s achingly youthful innocence, the reactions of people they encounter, Vijayan’s unspoken fears and the audience’s own preconceptions are enough to underline the issues Uncle obviously wishes to highlight: social biases towards single people, the conjectures made about any man and woman seen together unless they are married, and more.

Mammootty’s track record of incessantly romancing female actors young enough to be his daughters and granddaughters in film after film since the 1990s, contributes too to the red flag that goes up as soon as we realise that the Krishnakumar Uncle who stops to give Shruthi a lift is played by him. In that sense, he is an on-point casting choice. Nothing more was required to keep the audience on tenterhooks on her behalf.

Yet in KK’s presence, Uncle tries to be more of a thriller than it needs to be. In its bid to build up our (the audience’s) suspicions of KK, it has him indulging in inappropriate behaviour which it ends up normalising when the denouement guilts us for reacting negatively to him in these parts.

The writing and Mammootty’s acting are both intentionally misleading here. In shots dotting their drive together, we catch KK looking oddly at Shruthi, who is still a minor. He has a decidedly lackadaisical attitude towards the security of this child in his charge, which results in them being out late at night despite her parents’ expressed misgivings and in unsafe places without her parents’ explicit consent. We are also acutely aware of his tendency to invade her personal space when there is no need to do so, such as when he insists on reaching across and buckling her seatbelt for her in spite of her protestations.

Any discomfort audience members may feel towards him here is natural and acceptable. It makes no sense to equate that response with the other condemnable prejudices he faces.

It is hard to understand why Messrs Damodar and Mathew would spoil their film by getting this crucial element so wrong, when they get so much else right in Uncle.

DoP Alagappan N. uses spectacular aerial shots to emphasise the remoteness of the locations where Shruthi finds herself with KK, while at one point he resorts to a distorted close-up of their vehicle’s interior and elsewhere to a fish-eye view of the outside. His camerawork, the understated sound design and Bijibal’s background score are crucial to the ominous air that blankets the film throughout. Even the unnecessary full-length song with Shruthi dancing in the woods fails to kill the mood, though it does act as an irritating distraction. The number in Mammootty’s voice though (the old Entha Johnsa Kallille revived), is well slotted and lots of fun.

All the artistes other than Mammootty are exceptional. Young Karthika Muralidharan perfectly conveys guilelessness without consciously trying to be cute, with a confidence undented by the presence of her veteran superstar colleague. Mathew, who has one of the film’s most challenging roles, strikes a flawless balance between Vijayan’s good and awful side. And Muthumani is outstanding in the climax.

In that scene and in the one preceding it, Mammootty metamorphoses into the actor that cinephiles have reason to adore. Shrugging off his trademark swagger, with the screenplay no longer requiring him to pretend to be anything other than what KK is, he gives us a slight droop of the shoulder and a fleeting pain in his eyes that remind us of why he is an acting legend. That we do not see more of that artiste on screen these days is one of the saddest realities of our time.

When it is at its best, Uncle: My Dad’s Friend is an excellent psychological drama bordering on a work of genius. By making needless overt attempts to manipulate the audience though, it robs itself of its potential greatness.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	145 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/uncle-movie-review-gripping-theme-dragged-down-by-mammoottys-misleading-performance-and-other-red-herrings-4449241.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/unclemovie/