At the start of the film, we are shown a random marriage party scene where a random skirmish erupts between two rival groups of young men who were together in the past. The random fight is shown as eventually being settled by a tug of war, right at the marriage hall between the groups. The... Continue Reading →
Neru – My Flash Review!
Often, it happens that the reputation of the Director clouds our expectations first and then our take on the film. I suspect that the recent Mohanlal’s Malayalam film – Neru is a victim of such inclinations. The film is, after all, directed by Jeetu Joseph, who gave us the iconic hit films in the Drishyam... Continue Reading →
Kaathal – The Core (Malayalam) – My Flash Review!
The first question that comes to your mind when you finish watching this film is – how do writers in Malayalam cinema manage to conceive subjects like this, that too consistently? The story doesn’t fit into any of the usual cinematic formulae we are all used to. It is interesting to see how a progressive... Continue Reading →
Kannur Squad – My Flash Review!
The title Kannur Squad sounds like a story of some crack covert team from Kerala but out on some mission of National and International consequence. This film is indeed about a crack team but from the Police that operated in real in Kannur to investigate and crack down on the rising crimes in North Kerala... Continue Reading →
Jackson Bazaar Youth – My Flash Review
With a title like that, it is difficult to fathom what the film is all about. A few minutes into the film, you get that it is the name of a local band around which the story is centred. The band is shown to be very popular in the small town of Kerala somewhere near... Continue Reading →
Thrisanku – My Flash Review!
There was a time when Malayalam cinema was a factory for comedy films of great quality. These were the heydays of the famed Mohanlal-Srinivasan combo when clean comedy films of the slapstick genre used to regale us no end. Priyadarshan took many of these films to Bollywood with a lot of success until the predictability... Continue Reading →
Pachuvum Athbutha Vilakkum – My Flash Review!
With a title like that, your guess about the genre of the film is most likely that it is a comedy film. Pachuvum Athbutha Vilakkum (PAV) begins like a slice-of-life comedy affair. But along the way, it keeps shifting its genre to being a crime story and a love story and even a social drama... Continue Reading →
Ela Veezha Poonchira – My Flash Review!
The 1st thing that strikes about this film is the title. Ela Veezha Poonchira means “A Floral Bund without leaves”. Apparently this is a name of a place in Kottayam district of Kerala where the film is mostly set. There is a mythical explanation by way of a casual conversation in the film as to... Continue Reading →
Nanpagal Nerathu Mayakkam – My Flash Review!
You can mistake this for a Tamil film from the title. But it is a Malayalam film directed by Lijo Jose Pellissery whose reputation as a filmmaker of powerful cinema precedes him. Why is the title in Tamil or why most of the film is in Tamil is interesting to understand. How many of you... Continue Reading →
Morality in Malayalam Cinema – The Transition from White to Grey to Black!
Traditionally, the protagonists of most Indian films come in different shades of white. They tend to be morally upright, the films almost always on the ‘right’ side of morality. The established template is “the good people live happily ever after”, the corollary being that the ‘bad people’ will meet a bad end — if they... Continue Reading →
