Positive Malayalam Movie
V.K. Prakash, who had given us Punaradhivaasam, Mullavalliyum Thenmaavum, Police and Moonnamathoraal as well as the 'Hinglish' film Freaky Chakra, cuts a sorry figure with his latest venture Positive, touted to be an edge-of-the-seat thriller with music as the backdrop.
Positive tells the story of a bunch of youngsters - Raju, Cherry, Udayan and Vini, who form a musical troupe and are the best of friends. Vini, the lone girl in the troupe, is to some extent obstinate too. A young Police Officer, Assistant Commissioner Aniyan, makes his entry into the scenario as Vini's fiancé. But when Aniyan objects to Vini mingling with her friends, Vini decides to break off the alliance.
In the meantime Raju in the course of a journey happens to meet a young girl named Jyothi. They meet once again and this second meeting marks the beginning of a romance between them. Raju's parents too approve of the match and his father even tells him to bring the girl so that they could meet her. But then Jyothi suddenly disappears, nobody knows where. Raju searches everywhere, but he doesn't get a clue as to her whereabouts.
As time passes, Raju's parents put pressure on him to forget her and marry someone else. And then one day, something drastic happens. When Raju goes to Vini's flat, he learns that someone had committed suicide in an adjacent flat and the police team is there investigating. He's shocked to find that the guy who had committed suicide is Jyothi's husband. The Commissioner of Police and Assistant Commissioner Aniyan are doing the investigations. What happens subsequently forms the rest of the plot.
Performance-wise all the key players are just average. Skanda as Raju, Ramesh Pisharody as Cherry, Vani Kishore as Vini, and Ayilya as Jyothi are just passable. Even Manikuttan as Udayan doesn't impress much. Jayasurya as Aniyan and Saikumar as the commissioner also put in just average performances. T.G. Ravi as the Police constable is good. One wonders why an actor like Jagathy Sreekumar has been wasted in a poorly etched role, that of an insane guy. P. Sreekumar and Bindu Panicker as Raju's parents don't have much to do. Augustine is good as the security guy.
Technically Positive is not too bad, but compared to the earlier films by the director, it certainly is way behind. Of the three songs, the first one "Kanda naal muthal…' sung by Jayachandran is good, but not that tastefully visualized. The script is the main villain as far as the film is concerned. Dialogues are poorly written. And the English dialogues, rendered on screen by Jayasurya's Aniyan, suffers from poor delivery. The suspense element should have been worked out better. In total, Positive is a rather poor film.
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