7th Day - Malayalam Movie Review - Prithviraj, Janani Iyer

 7th Day - Malayalam Movie Review

Crew

Director: Syam Dhar  
Producer: Shibu G Suseelan 
  Music: Deepak Dev  
Cinematography: Sujith Vasudev  
Art Direction: Vineesh Banglan  
Story/Writer: Akhil Paul  
Costume Design: Arun Manohar
Editing by John Kutty 

Distributed by     August Cinema
Release dates   April 11, 2014
Country     India
Language     Malayalam

Cast

    Prithviraj Sukumaran as David Abraham

    Janani Iyer as Jessy
    Vinay Forrt as Shan Shahar
    Anu Mohan as Vinu Ramachandran
    Tovino Thomas as Eby
    Praveen Prem as Cycle
    Joy Mathew as P.T.R. Bhattathiri

    Yog Japee as Charlie

 

Suspended IPS officer David Abraham on  Christmas night involves in an accident. The Jeep driven by him knocks off a bike and its passengers from the road. One of the passenger commits suicide that night and the other one seen beaten up pretty badly. So David takes the matters in to his own hands and starts unofficial investigation without the knowledge of the Department. Slowly things began to unravel before him. Who where those passengers, what happened with them, why did the guy commit suicide etc gets revealed in the following reels, and ends with a typical Hollywoodistic (post) climax shock twist and open ending for possible sequels, which I personally think will not be made.

'7th Day' will be the 3rd investigative/mystery movie Prithvi is being a part of in the past 12 months, and the 15th cop role in his career so far. The 1st look of the film has created quite a flutter in the internet.The look and feel of the movie made it look like a dark gritty slow paced thriller. The makers didn't even release a trailer to avoid unnecessary hype and people coming with strong preconceived notions.

But unfortunately the film ends up just a half baked, kinda predictable thriller with lots of loose ends. Malayalis have been offered quite a few brilliantly executed thrillers in the past, especially last 12 months, like Mumbai Police, Memories, Drishyam etc. 7th day is one such movie that desperately tries to squeeze in to that league, yet look a class apart, and end up neither here nor there. 

The intention was to make an eerie dark noir thriller, and the mood was perfectly set too, thanks to the brilliant work of Sujith, the DOP. But unfortunately both the direction and scripting falters. The dialogues have been rendered with unnecessary amount of stretching and pause (in quite a few scenes), which gives a drama feel. Prithvi's character cleary doesn't have an identity (or the writer wanted him to be mystery for us), coz he behaves like the guys from 'Island Express sometimes, sometimes Mumbai Police and some times London Bridge. Not only the character, the script is also confusing making us wonder what is happening at times. The movie does picks up pace towards interval portions and interval onward, but soon falls to the predictive track.

Felt there are many loose ends in the script. The film throws up more questions than answers. Most of the twists and turns were predictable, especially the finale one (but majority of the audience didn't felt so, looking at the reaction).

Like I said Prithvi's character is bit confusing and contradicting. But anyhow he has excelled in what was asked of him. Vinay Fort was good as Shaan. Anu, Tovino, Praveen did okay job while Janani doesn't get much screen space or scope to perform.

Direction was good in parts, could have given a better product with a better, closely knit script. Too many loop holes and unanswered questions (Or leaving too much to the viewers sensibility) predictable twists and turns made the scripting look weak. The dialogues were Good, even though have different opinion about the the rendering of the same. Cinematography & BG were excellent. Art work was good. Locations were beautiful and apt for the movie. Songs comes as part of narration, which aren't noteworthy.

So, what could have been a promising thriller end up just half baked.

Verdict: Average

Rating 2.5/5

Last Word: Many who watched the movie along with me like it pretty much, so give it a try if you are a fan of the genre or the new Prithviraj that we got to see in the past 1-2 years

PS: Moriarty ????? Reallly ???? ......

Pauly Technique - Malayalam Movie Review - Kunchako Boban, Bhavana

Pauly Technique - Malayalam Movie Review - Kunchako Boban, Bhavana

Crew

Director:  M.Padmakumar

Script:  Nishad Koya

Producers:  Kala Nair and Liyakath Tirur

Banner:  Mrinalini Gandhi Cinemas

Distributor:  Percy Pictures

Music:  Gopi Sundar

Editor:  Ranjan Abraham

Cinematographer:  Pramod K Pillai

 Lyrics:  Rajeev Nair

Cast

Kunchacko Boban - Pauly

 Bhavana - Aswathy

Vijayaragavan - Sukumaran Nair 

Aju Varghese - Becker

 Ambika 

Devi Chandana 

Shiju 

Kochupreman 

Thesni Khan 

Idavela Babu

Pauly is a jobless youth, who along with his childhood friends are members of the communist party youth wing. He is involved in all the social activities of his villages and often gets in the way of Panchayath President Sukumaran Nair, who is at logger heads with Pauly from his school days. In a terrorist attack happened in Mumbai Pauly's father, a Commando, gets killed  With the compensation money he got from the Govt., Pauly decides to buy the closed 'Dakshyani' Biscuits factory and reopen it as agro Processing and storing facility. Sukumaran Nair understanding this puts up road blocks, one after the other, to disrupt Pauly at any cost. The feud intensifies when Asawthy, daughter of Sukumaran Nair, Pauly's sweet heart from child hod refuses to marry anybody other than Pauly. The techniques that Pauly adopts to fight the corrupt politicians and officials, win over his love and make the factory run forms the rest of the story.

PAuly Technique resembles many Malayalam movies of the past, like Mithunam, Punyalan agarbathis etc, but still is able to stand on its own thanks to the interesting script by Nishad Koya, who also wrote 'Ordinary'. There wasn't much hype surrounding the film leading to its release, and even the release wasn't sure till the last moment, but finally the makers can relax as they have managed to deliver a good entertainer.

The film is predictable and we can predict every single twist and turn. Plus there aren't much 'techniques' that we don't predict coming. It gets melodramatic here and there and drags at places. The songs prove to be hindrances than anything else.

The light humor sprinkled through out the film is what makes PT works.Plus its a clean family entertainer without any double meaning dialogues or cuss words. Kunchako Boban shines as Pauly and is from the start to finish. Aju Varghese is a treat and gets almost equal footage as Boban. The rest of the cast also did a good job. Bhavana was looking great, but didn't had much to do.


This is the first time Padmakmar will be handling a Comedy subject and did an okay job is presenting a neat film. Its the second film of writer Nishad Koya, and already he is proving to be some one producers can bank upon. The predictable story has been narrated interestingly by him. Cinematography and editing also adds flavor to the film. Music and BG were average.

In all Pauly Technique is a clean family comedy entertainer that should appeal to all. The definitely have some techniques up in its sleeve.

Verdict: Good

Rating 3/5

Last Word: Entertaining Techniques.....