Gopalapuranam Malayalam Movie

The film is a wasted effort on all counts, and is not worth your hard earned money or your time. Mar 16, 2008 By Thomas T

One wonders why movies such as this, which blindly adhere to patterns that no longer entertain or excite people of any generation, are made in the first place. One also wonders why filmmakers in Kerala don't bother to change with the times. That's the feeling that one gets watching K.K. Haridas-directed Gopalapuranam. The film is a wasted effort on all counts, and is not worth your hard earned money or your time.

Gopalapuranam tells the story of Gopalan Nair and his family. Gopalan Nair rears cows and sells the milk for a living. His family consists of his wife Yeshodha, son Gopalakrishnan and daughter Nandhini. Gopalakrishnan is not like his father. He doesn't want to work that hard and dreams of making easy money. In the meantime Nandhini comes across a person named Vishnu on different occasions and later when Vishnu's alliance for marriage comes seeking her, things work out well and they get married.

Vishnu however is a smuggler and works under Mathew, his mentor. Gopalakrishnan is drawn towards the easy money that smuggling brings, and Vishnu lets him join him in his smuggling activities. In the meantime, Yeshodha's father and her brother, who are also smugglers and rivals to Mathew, make moves against Mathew's gang. Things thus move towards a climax in which Gopalakrishnan, owing to his greed for money, does something untoward and creates much trouble, which eventually is resolved.

Mukesh as Vishnu, Rajan P. Dev as Gopalan Nair, Shobha Mohan as Yeshodha, Saikumar as Mathew and Indrans as the broker Sultan Abdul Khader don't deliver the kind of performance that can be called outstanding. New-face Sujibala doesn't make much of an impact as Nandhini. The greatest tragedy about the film is that the character of Gopalakrishnan, which should have been the highlight of the film, has been poorly etched, and Ramana the actor who plays the role has done a poor job. Salim Kumar too doesn't make any kind of an impact.

The songs are below average. Cinematography and other technical aspects are not worth writing home about. The film would have been better if the scenarist had taken better care of the characterization and the dialogues. Once you have seen the movie, you will be left guessing who the hero of the film was. Moreover the treatment is rather outdated and old-fashioned. In total Gopalapuranam in short is a film that you can see and forget or perhaps even refrain from seeing.