August 15 -the review

August 1 ,which got released in the late eighties was  based on the 1971 novel, The Day of the Jackal, by English writer Frederick Forsyth.23 years later,S.N.Swamy and M.Mani(the producer of August 1)have come up with it's sequel tilted August 15.Mammooty reprises the role of Perumal,(who was the DySP, CB-CID 23 years ago)in this sequel directed by Shaji Kailas.

The plot and the characters:V.G(Nedumudi Venu) is the C.M. of the state of Kerala.He is in loggerheads with the secretary of the party(Saikumar).The lottery,Sand mafias want the C.M. to be killed.So they hire an Assassin(Siddique)to get their job done.What happens next is what August 15 is all about.

Mammootty as Perumal: Mammootty is Perumal,the CBCID .Perumal looks good,rides a Royal Enfield,attends calls in his mobile,walks in slo-mo with a peculiar gait and a loud BGM playing behind,teases his superior officer Peter Zachariah(played brilliantly by Lalu Alex)to kill his time,plays with Photoshop and even cracks funny dialogues like this through his mobile phone(which rings with a 'Nokia tune' all the time!)

Perumal: (to someone called Ammini George)-Hello,Ormayundo ee mukham?.
Ammini: (who is on the other end of the line)-Pinnillathe,Engane marakkananu!

 Siddique as the killer: Siddique,who is a really talented actor is wasted in this poorly written role .A cat and mouse game between the assassin and Perumal was what we had expected from this movie,but sadly there is nothing of that sort here.He repeats his 'Bada Dhosth' act here also.

Loop Holes galore: Siddique,the assassin gives an anonymous call to all the leading newspapers and the visual media.Alas,the content of what he told them is the headline of all the newspapers,the next day! The doctors who are treating the C.M,the private secretary to the C.M and a couple of other insignificant people are always a part of the super confidential meetings called by Perumal and co to find out the killer! The super intelligent Perumal browses the poison page in our good old wiki and finds out the toxic substance that the killer has supposedly used to harm the C.M.!

The Best Scene: The confrontation scene between Perumal and the ADGP Peter Zachariah (at Peter's office) .This one is a pretty hilarious scene,thanks to the brilliant actor Lalu Alex.As Peter Zachariah,he is a real treat to watch and is unarguably the only saving grace in this otherwise dumb movie.The scene at the Party secretary's house involving Perumal,Peter and the secretary(Saikumar dressed up like the CPI(M) secretary,Pinarayi Vijayan)is also a cracker.

Meghna Raj and Swetha Menon– The 2 main female characters in the movie have less than ten minutes of screen time in the whole movie.They blabber something and fade into the oblivion.

Background score – The re recording is competent.It serves the purpose of waking up the few who have already gone into deep slumber.

Good Acting: Lalu alex as the ADGP is the only good thing about this movie.With his impeccable comic timing,he steals the show.

Shaji Kailas' direction: Nothing worth writing about.There are a lot of weird shots in the movie.Multiple extreme close up shots of tea being poured into the tumbler are included in this movie,the reasons for their inclusion is known only to the director,i guess.

What went wrong: S.N.Swamy repeats the same mistakes which he made in Sagar Alias Jackey,Baba Kaliyani,Positive,Rahasya Police.The Perumal in August 15 is only an extension of the character played by Mohanlal in Baba Kaliyani.The styling,body language et al are repetitive and even reminded the iconic 'Sethuramayyar' at places.The story is exactly the same as that of August 1.To spice up the proceedings a bit,the recent clash within the CPI(M) is also delt with topically but the treatment and the writing is so bland that it fails to become even remotely interesting.Nothing much happens in the first half.But the most terrible thing with the script is that the mission,the assassin,the motive,the conspirators,the method and almost everything else get revealed way too early(within the first fifteen minutes to be exact)leaving behind Perumal nothing much to do for the next 2 hours or so.So we can't really blame him for walking in slo-mo and mouthing silly dialogues,right?

The climax: Some 25 minutes before the climax we are made to believe that the assassin(Siddique) has a deadly plan to carry out  on the 15 th of August,the Independence day.But even after the end credits started rolling,neither Perumal nor i had any clue about what S.N.Swamy was talking about.A badly choreographed action sequence shot in some C class theatre followed by the mandatory S.N.Swamy twist (which is the end result of the 'inky -pinky-ponky' game between the script writer and his characters)were what we had in store instead!

Verdict: Drona 2010,the Shaji Kailas directed M.Mani production with Mammootty in the lead role was a disaster .The gentleman he is,Mammootty gave dates to the producer M.Mani again so that he can make up for the losses incurred in his previous film,thus August 15 was born.We wish Drona 2010 had never happened.
Rating- 3/10(Stay away from this dud)

reviewed by nikhimenon@gmail.com

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Christian Brothers-the review

Christian Brothers-A Wannabe Twenty Twenty!

Joshiy and his team have reworked their ‘twenty twenty’ template to make a half baked thriller called ‘Christian Brothers’.There are foreign location songs,superstar Mohanlal in a larger than life role,father-son sentiments,Dileep’s comic acts,twists which come in every thirty minutes ,Suraj Venjaramooodu’s bufoonery, an interval punch similar to what we saw in Twenty Twenty,fight between the superstars(Mohanlal,Suresh Gopi), a little bit of skin show(in the form of Laksmi Rai) and everything else needed for a commercial potboiler;yet the movie fails to engage you completely.Christian Brothers will be lapped up by the fans of the Superstar for sure and in all probabilities will become a big hit.But for an ordinary movie goer it is just an average fare.

Story and the Script: Scripting for a multistarrer is no child’s play.Uday Krishna and Sibi K Thomas have come up with a no brainer script this time too. ‘Christian Brothers’ is marginally better than their own ‘Pokkiri Brothers’ but is not as entertaining or racy as Twenty Twenty.The loop holes in the script are far too many.

Christy (Mohanlal) is an informer to the Mumbai Police.Meenakshy,the daughter(Kavya) of the Kerala Home minister gets kidnapped and Christy is called for help(remember Sagar Alias Jackey?).Christy happens to be the brother of Jojiy(Dileep) who is madly in love with Meenakshy.Some unexpected twists later,Meenakshy’s kidnapper George Kutty(Suresh Krishna) gets killed and Christy is the suspect.Enter Antony Punnakkadan Joseph Vadakkan,the super cop played by……..you guessed it right! There are also a number of subplots involving Laksmi Rai,Lakshmi Gopala Swamy,Jagathy Sreekumar et al.Biju Menon,Vijaya Raghavan,Jayan play the baddies while Saikumar(!) plays Mohanlal’s father.As in Pokkiri Raja there is a father-son sentiments track here too.Sarath Kumar as Andrews has a very small role and features in two important sequences. 

The main problem with the movie lies in its’ script itself.It is a remixed version of ‘Twenty Twenty’ and ‘Pokkiri Raja’.The first half  (in which issues like land grabbing have been delt with topically)is a bit confusing and also drags considerably.The much hyped fight between Joseph aka Thomichan(Suresh Gopi) and Christy fails to make any impact.Those who have seen twenty twenty would easily predict the interval twist involving the Underworld don Andrews and Christy.The father character of V.Mapilla(Saikumar)is a xerox copy of Nedumudi Venu’s character in Pokkiri Raja.

Direction: Joshiy has done a decent job at handling all these big stars efficiently.CB is the kind of movie which relies heavily on it’s star power rather than a credible story line to get itself worked at the boxoffice and the veteran director has made full use of his huge star cast here.

Cast and Performances: CB is Mohanlal’s show all the way and his character,Christy will be a treat for his fans.Though the movie has nothing challenging for an actor of his calibre,it will give him the much needed hit.Suresh Gopi repeats his daredevil cop act for the n th time and honestly i didn’t like his character much.Dileep plays his usual comic acts with elan, manages to raise a few laughs whenever he is on screen.Though Sarath Kumar has a very small role he looks aged and tired on screen. The leading ladies have nothing much to do.In big budget movies like this,the female characters are casted just for the eye candy bit.Even no such luck here.All the heroines except Kaniha looked plum and totally out of shape.Suraj Venjaramoodu manages to irritate the audience with his stale jokes.

Editing: Its' a good thing that Ranjan Abraham hasn’t gone after fast cuts and other gimmicks.But at almost 3 hours,’Christian Brothers’ is tad too long. Wonder why Suraj Venjaramoodu,the ’sayyavve’ song picturised on Mohanlal and Laksmi Rai, the character played by Harisree Asokan and even Lakshmi Rai were included in the film. A lot of scenes in the first half of the movie were really unwanted and the lag was overtly felt at places.

Cinematography: Anil Nair has done a shoddy work with his camera.The movie suffers due to excessive lighting.Lakshmi Rai hasn’t looked so bad on screen before!Extreme close up shots were also there in abundance.Every pore and crease on her face were clearly visible,thanks to the mediocre camera man.Another instance in which Anil Nair’s camera plays the spoil sport is the London scene in which Dileep is talking to Kavya through phone.The whole scene is lit up in such a way that even a ten year old can spot the thick layers of make up used on Dileep’s face.

Songs and BGM: Deepak Dev hasn’t disappointed much.The songs are hummable especially the ‘Moham Kondal’ track.The picturisation of the other two tracks ‘Karthave’ and ‘Sayyave’ are lousy,to say the least.While the ‘Karthave’ song has a ‘Maine Pyar Kiya’(CID Moosa)/’Kavilinayil(Vandanam) hang over to it,the ‘Sayyave’ track suffers due to the un necessary skin show by Laksmi Rai.Both Lakshmi Rai and Kavya Madhavan looked plum and ugly.The re recording reminded of twenty twenty.

Verdict: Christian Brothers will be loved by the fans of Mohanlal,Dileep and Suresh Gopi.For others its only a watchable fare.CB is no Twenty Twenty.Though it tries too hard to be one,it only ends up as a pale imitation. Rating-5/10

reviewed by nikhimenon@gmail.com 2011

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