Keralolsavam 2009 Malayalam Movie
It might be unheard of in our film industry, but we badly need to have a few casting directors around. Because, when a director casts Vinu Mohan in the role of a hardcore terrorist and a Kalari artist to boot, it's a sure sign that people are capable of doing the most inexplicable things.
There is a grand cultural festival in the offing somewhere in Kerala it seems, that's called Keralolsavam 2009. Sandeep (Vinu Mohan) joins the team headed by Padmanabhan Embranthiri (Nedumudi Venu) and his daughter Ganga (Vishnupriya) with an ulterior motive in mind.
Remember those hapless eyes of Meghna in Dil Se? And those of Amar? The ground remains the same here as well, since the essential conflict that ensues between the sense of duty and sentiment is very much there. Everything else is drastically different; be it the emotions that it spurts or the interest that it generates.
Actor turned director Shankar is in no way aided by that script that Vinu Narayanan has penned. For one, it's full of implausibility of the kind that makes us squirm in our seats. There is a reference for instance to an Indo Pak war that according to the film must have taken place around 1987. Takers, anyone?
The attempts to emphasize the innate goodness in man are pathetic. We have a Hindu giving refuge to a Muslim practicing a temple art; a Muslim girl being married off by a Hindu foster parent and what not? Over the board by a mile, the dramatics are not too easy to suffer through.
Vinu Mohan playing around with a revolver looks as incongruous as Katrina Kaif making an omelet at a dhaba. At the most heartrending moments, like when he plans to bomb the city, he looks like a sulking high school kid who refuses to drink his glass of milk. He shrugs and frowns, and even shakes his head in dismay.
It has been some time since our playback singing was almost encroached by a bevy of female singers who have almost massacred our language with their bizarre pronunciation. Thankfully with talented dubbing artistes around, we have been spared of these anomalies in films.
Along comes a heroine in Keralosavam whose Malayalam diction seems to have come under a spell of Spanish. Whether the makers simply couldn't afford a dubbing artiste or whether they decided to retain the original speech simply because it was inkeeping with the horror ambiance escapes me.
Keralalolsavam 2009 is just a revolting bowl of cinematic leftovers. There is little left in it that you can actually dig into, and the more you try to, the more bland it gets.
