I watched this movie because this is the sequel to "In Harihar Nagar" which was one of the best comedies I have seen - in any language. Of course, like any self respecting malayali, I believe that malayalam comedy is the best. Good British comedy comes in at a distant second while American comedy is mostly slapstick or stand-up and lacks the recall value that a "Thomas'kutty Vittodaaa!!!" has. What follows is less of a review and more of a solution to the "to watch or not to watch ?" question.
Firstly, comparisons to In harihar Nagar, which was released in 1990, would be unfair to the movie. Its made in a different era, and Lal's recent movies have all been similar to this - they've all been part of the cliche - youth = colourful, vibrant, lots of hair on the head, 'cool' clothes. This movie is not different as it tries to connect to the younger audience again, except the actors are all 50+ now!
To his credit, Lal has tried to make up for the lack of mobility and genuine youth with an overdose of humour. We shouldn't forget that the older movie was one with 2 distinct parts. The fun-and-laughter 1st half and a second half where a new and terrible villain, John Honai, is introduced. I felt the violence was one of IHN's strong points because you will find it in stark contrast to the first half.
In this movie though, in an attempt to keep the rating at 'U' (I presume), there are very few scenes of violence and absolutely no scenes which you will remember for too long. None of the villainous characters show any negative intent. The protagonists are not even restrained in captivity.
(All ratings are on personal parameters)
Acting: 5/10
Many scenes with great potential were wasted. These guys were never great actors, so Lal should've omitted scenes requiring such great effort. Lakshmi Rai as the girl is terrible, just terrible. Thank God she has only a small part to play.
Comedy: 9/10
This score is helped hugely by the above mentioned overdose. Lal has taken special care to disrupt all serious scenes with jokes.
Story: 8/10
The beginning is very lame but the end more than compensates. An O.Henry twist. Well done.
Picturization: 3/10
The movie suffers from the same problem as other recent malayalam movies. They are too focused on peoples faces and less on the scene. When the "acting" isn't stellar, it looks so... wrong!
Music: 5/10
No originality in the songs. The rehash of the epic "Ekanda Chandrikey!" is dissapointing, frankly. They could've used less techno and picturized it in a more realistic way.
Overall: 6/10
Its not a movie worthy of a theatre ticket, but is defenitely fun to watch.
Its a decent attempt to use older original ideas.
PS : By the way, why not rate the In Harihar Nagar movie on IMDB?
4 comments:
Didn't get tickets in Cochin on release day. Didn't get tickets in both theaters in Calicut 2 days later. Entire day wasted in queues. Finally got to see the movie in K'god, where people were rioting for tickets. Considering all this, it was disappointing return for all I suffered.
I watched this movie many weeks after the release. but even so it was a sold out balcony and watched in "thara" class @shenoys.
simplicity of the prequel rocks.. This one lacks simplicity. I din the film a bit.. comedy is very much over heads.. crap..
though i don't agree with the point allocation..i do agree that it was pretty bore..all comedies were too 'over'.
the twists were unnecessarily twisted and picturization pretty lame.. i give overall 5.5/10.. for the sake of the old ones memories..
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