Rashtram Malayalam Movie
Rashtram says the story about Thommichan (Suresh Gopi), the son of political ideologue and ex-minister Maliekal Ouseppachan, fondly called Kerala Gandhi - a political visionary, who shared a common dream with party head and the then Chief Minister Janardhanan Kurup (Nedumudi Venu), as well as with Saghaav Gopalan (Thilakan) of the opposition even though, Gopalan was a follower of a different ideology.
During the first half of the film, the character of Thommichan reminds you of several films with political overtones having Mohanlal in the lead, twirling his moustache and taking on bureaucrat criminals, as well as characters played by Gopi himself in films like Lelam and Pathram. Watching how the character develops in the second half where Gopi brings the crooks to books, the average movie buff can tell that Anil C Menon drew his inspiration from Shankar's Muthalvan in Tamil or Nayak in Hindi.
All said and done, fans of Suresh Gopi can be relieved this flick starts off literally with a bang – the actor got himself hurt in the process with a dummy grenade going off in his hands – and he also gets to mouth some punchy one-liners. Laya is reduced to just a one song heroine. For Madhu, Thilakan and Nedumudi Venu, it’s routine performance. The same can be said of the whole bunch of baddies Adityan, Saikumar, Bheeman Raghu, Janardhanan, Suresh Krishna, Vijayaraghavan, Meghanadhan, Sfadikom George, Saddique, Augustine and P. Sreekumar.
The director loses focus somewhere in the middle unlike his earlier Ben Johnson which was slicker and fast paced. His earnestness in making Rashtram different is evident in most frames, but you always get the feeling that you have already seen or heard those scenes and dialogues in one or other movie, and that’s where he fails - trying to make it different but not able to raise it above the expected levels.
There isn’t much to write home about the other departments. The music by Deepak Dev appears to be hurriedly composed and is eminently forgettable. If Donn Maxx made The Tiger look crisp with his spot editing, with this one he has ruined the goodwill created earlier. Cinematography by Biju Jacob is the only saving grace. On the whole, this is a very mediocre film meant only for die-hard fans of Suresh Gopi
