REVIEW 738: EDAKKAD BATTALION 06

Release date:	October 18, 2019
Director:	Swapnesh K. Nair
Cast: Language:	Tovino Thomas, Samyuktha Menon, Santhosh Keezhattoor, Salim Kumar Malayalam

I doubt that Lijo Jose Pellissery would have expected amusement as a reaction to Jallikattu, yet halfway through Swapnesh K. Nair’s Edakkad Battalion 06, I found myself laughing out loud at the contrast between this film and Pellissery’s new release that I had watched just hours earlier. Jallikattu strides purposefully towards the many points it wishes to make, Edakkad B06 waffles on and on. Jallikattu is trim, Edakkad B06 is flabby. Jallikattu has clarity of thought, Edakkad B06 wanders about in a confusing state. Most important, you may like or dislike, agree or disagree with Jallikattu, but you have to admit that it is pointed and sharp. Edakkad Battalion 06, on the other hand, is as dull as hell.  

The chasm separating these two films getting to theatres across India on the same day is a perfect illustration of how Malayalam cinema has for long swung wildly between extremes in terms of quality.

Edakkad Battalion 06 is set in a small town in Kerala where Captain Shafeek Mohammed of the Indian Army is home on vacation from a posting in the strife-torn north. Here he comes up against a bunch of no-good youngsters drifting through life and gets acquainted with the drug menace plaguing local youth. His passing concern grows into greater involvement in the problem when he learns that someone close to him is an addict.

The first visual of Tovino Thomas as Shafeek is preceded by a long-winded introduction to multiple characters in the story accompanied by sketches of the actors playing them. You might imagine that this will then be a busy film with each of these seemingly interesting men and women playing a significant role in the plot. Curb your imagination, dear reader, because the team of this film lacks it. 

That intro – like so much else in Edakkad Battalion 06 – could have been shaved off without particularly impacting the film beyond reducing its length. Because when the narrative is rolled out, none of these characters is treated with any depth. Not even Naina Fathima, a teacher who has made a mark while working with differently abled students, and is played by Samyuktha Menon. 

Thomas and Menon had sparkled and shone together as a screen couple in Theevandi.  Her role in Edakkad Battalion 06 is so small, so generic and so marginal, that she can do little to lift it beyond the ordinary despite her good looks and undeniable charisma. 

Menon could have been replaced by any random pretty woman without the change making an inch of a difference to this film, since the only purpose she serves here is to look nice, and give the male lead a woman to fall in love with, while Naina’s profession sets the stage for a dramatic rescue by our hero early in the narrative and later for some children with disabilities to be dragged into what must rank as one of the most offensively emotionally manipulative, nauseatingly mushy, poorly written film endings ever seen. 

The plot of Edakkad Battalion 06 feels like a contrived stringing together of disconnected sub-plots. Shafeek’s interactions with his extended family, his romance with Naina, his work as an Armyman in a terrorism-stricken state and his confrontation with drug peddlers back home do not flow smoothly from one to the other, nor is any of these elements written with any detail. As a result when they are thrown together they feel like an odd, bland mishmash.

Women actors in most film industries, and in Malayalam cinema more than most, have limited choices, but male stars wield considerable clout, so while Menon could be let off lightly, Thomas should certainly be held accountable for his decision to pick this sub-par script. The charming young actor’s filmography so far is packed with sweet, gentle cinema. Even when he did the horrendous Kalki earlier this year, it was possible to guess his reason for having chosen it: an evident desire to be catapulted into the biggest of big leagues in Mollywood although he is already a major star. What could he possibly have seen in Edakkad Battalion 06 though? The search for the answer may well inspire a mystery writer. 

If you deign to check the credits of this soporific film, you may be startled to discover, as I was, that it has been scripted by P. Balachandran whose writing credits include the stupendous Kammatipaadam. A trough following a crest in a wave is a natural phenomenon, but can science please explain how Edakkad Battalion 06 could possibly follow Kammatipaadam from the same writer? Seriously, how?

Rating (out of five stars): *

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	111 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/edakkad-battalion-06-movie-review-tovino-thomas-and-samyuktha-menon-are-re-paired-for-a-lame-ode-to-notsurewhat-7525951.html

Visuals courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/EdakkadBattalion06official/

REVIEW 691: ORU YAMANDAN PREMAKADHA

Release date:	April 25, 2019
Director:	B.C. Naufal
Cast: Language:	Dulquer Salmaan, Vishnu Unnikrishnan, Salim Kumar, Soubin Shahir, Samyuktha Menon, Nikhila Vimal, Renji Panicker, Bibin George, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Lena, Akshara Kishor, Sunil Sukhada, Dileesh Pothan, Dharmajan Bolgatty, Hareesh Perumanna, Arun Kurian Malayalam

It must be tough being Dulquer Salmaan. On the one hand, you are a fine actor keen to work in intelligent films and be a part of the Malayalam industry’s increasing ability to make blockbusters out of sensible cinema. On the other hand, you have the looks and personality to possibly pull off those stereotypical larger-than-life characters that the senior male megastars of your industry, including your Dad, have played for decades and that continue to earn crores. The factors that recently persuaded your usually unconventional contemporary Nivin Pauly to waste himself on Mikhael must be at play in your life too. I can only imagine a zillion voices trying to coax you to go the way of The Great Father, Lucifer and Mikhael.

Hear ye Your Royal Cuteness, Your Majesty Prince of the Malayalam Realm, Explorer of Kingdoms Beyond, Actor Par Excellence, Knight of the Handsome Face and Sweet Smile, if Oru Yamandan Premakadha reveals anything to a long-time viewer of your work, it is that the likes of Ustad Hotel, Kammatipaadam and Kali are your natural habitat – your reluctance to head in the opposite direction shows.

Readers should not misunderstand: to be fair to Oru Yamandan Premakadha (A Massive/Powerful Love Story), it is far from being the excruciating experience that The Great Father, Lucifer and Mikhael were. When it gets loud it is not as loud, when it is clichéd it is still not insufferable. What it is though is neither here nor there.

Oru Yamandan Premakadha (OYP) is an obvious effort by writers Bibin George and Vishnu Unnikrishnan (who earlier collaborated on Amar Akbar Anthony and Kattappanayile Rithwik Roshan) along with director B.C. Naufal to be ruminative while trying to achieve the magnitude of Mollywood’s megabucks formula films. Sorry gentlemen, but those ruminations are downright ridiculous and the shot at appearing thoughtful is in any case overshadowed by the attempt to scale up.

Dulquer Salmaan / DQ’s decision to pick this film is at one level inexplicable, because it truly is a silly script. At another level though, when viewed solely in the context of its tenor and the size of its canvas, the choice suggests a hesitation to go all-out low-key like his colleague Fahadh Faasil, even as he steers clear of formulaic rubbish.

DQ plays OYP’s Lallu, the happy-go-lucky son of a rich lawyer (Renji Panicker). The young man cares nothing for the comforts his father’s wealth can buy. He prefers leftovers from a friend’s kitchen over food from an expensive hotel, paints houses instead of opting for a high-flying corporate career of the sort his younger brother (Arun Kurian) has gone in for, and hangs out with men who his Dad considers below their station. 

Lallu has three constant companions. Teny (Vishnu Unnikrishnan) earns a living as a bad karaoke singer on the streets and is blind. The elderly widowed alcoholic Panjikuttan (Salim Kumar) is a house painting contractor. Soubin Shahir plays a man anxious to hook up with any woman who will have him.

All the girls in town have been smitten by Lallu since he was a boy, but Lallu was and is determined only to be with a woman with whom he shares a “spark” at first sight. One such angelic creature does come along at one point, but the film has meandered about for sooooo long till then and everything that follows thereafter is so stupid that it is impossible to care.

At first there are a few laughs to be had at the expense of Lallu and his buddies. Pretty soon, however, the humour peters out and the script keeps jumping from one unconnected thought to another, feeling quite vacuous after a while. If the idea is to dwell on the many unexpected and unexplained cross connections in human relations, to make a point that even the most seemingly insignificant person serves a purpose in life, then the point is poorly made. If the idea is to tickle our funny bones, then it barely works.

OYP is filled with running jokes that range from funny-at-first-but-ruined-by-repetition to downright unfunny, distasteful and/or dull, dull, dull. Like the thread about a roadside eatery owner (Hareesh Perumanna) who is so bad at Maths that he cannot calculate what his patrons owe him and therefore does not charge them. Yawn. Or that other thread involving a jobless twosome (Dharmajan Bolgatty is one of them) seated outside and talking non-stop. Yawn. Or the emaciated-looking fellow who struggles to catch fish and who is incessantly taunted for his skinniness, which includes being addressed as “onangiya sraavey” (dried-up shark). Err, nasty! Or Lallu’s repeated use of “omana kutti” in place of “ok”. Umm, no ya, trying too hard to be cho-chweet and cash in on the actor’s own omana-kuttan-ness. As for Lallu’s full name that is revealed only in the final scene, it is such a yawn, yawn, yawn. Some of these motifs have potential, but the writers fail to flesh them out well.

There are other more grave refrains in OYP that are no doubt meant to be profound, but are no less ineffectual. Like the one featuring the villainous Davis (Bibin George), a mysterious chap with a physical disability who is haunted by Mommy issues and who keeps appearing, disappearing and reappearing. Whatever.

Then there is the passing reference to a “vanitha mathil” (women’s wall), the third time in a month now that I have heard a Malayalam film make a wisecrack about the human chain formed in Kerala earlier this year as a symbol of solidarity in the women’s rights movement. Unlike the misogynistic potshots in Mera Naam Shaji and Madhuraraja, the mention in OYP is not cutting – it is meaningless. Still, the fact that the mathil is repeatedly being brought up in popular culture with pretended nonchalance indicates just how much it has disturbed the men of this patriarchal industry. There is a separate and long discussion to be had here.

That said, everything that is wrong with OYP – including its rather bizarre, mixed-up comment on the (un)importance of education – is put in the shade by the writers’ deathly serious conviction that a human being could fall deeply in love with someone they have only seen in a photograph. This is not portrayed as a mere attraction but as a profound, life-altering love.

The supporting cast of OYP is packed with familiar faces, but in the face of such uninspiring writing, most deliver generic performances. Suraj Venjaramoodu, Lena and Dileesh Pothan invest more of themselves in the film than it deserves. Two striking women who have already proved that they are solid artistes – Nikhila Vimal (Njan Prakashan) and Samyuktha Menon (Theevandi) – are squandered here as showpieces in a plot pinned entirely on the male protagonist.

DQ looks good in lungis and is charming of course, but even his charm cannot hold up nearly three hours of exhausting wanderings. Your Royal Handsomeness, whatchadoin' with this lousy script? A better name for it would have been Oru Mundane Premakadha.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	165 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/oru-yamandan-premakadha-movie-review-his-royal-cuteness-dulquer-salmaan-gets-a-script-that-is-just-so-meh-6528861.html

Poster courtesy:

https://www.facebook.com/DQSalmaan/