Love 24 × 7 Malayalam Movie Review

To be successful in ones life be it in their professional, personal or family life one needs to take the right decision at the right time. If we fail to react and make a decision, we will regret it later. Seems the movie Love 24 × 7 want to convey something like this. We have one more lady director in Mollywood. Sreebala K Menon who was a long time associate with Sathyan Anthikad starts her career as an independent director through Love 24 ×7 with Dileep in the lead role.
So after Chandrettan Evideya we have one more movie from the actor without any of the slapstick humour. Set in the backdrop of visual media, the film try to explore love and relationships at a pace of its own. Nothing much happen in the film that promise much initially.
Roopesh Nambiar is a celebrity presenter with an established channel. Kabini who joins the channel as a news reader start a relationship that leads the two at the crossroads where they need to take an all important decision of their life.
To establish the fact that they need to wisely take a decision affecting their personal and professional life, a parallel story is shown where an elderly people, two senior doctors who were classmates when they did their medical studies meet again after years and after having separate families of their own.
The story half way through leave the main plot somewhere and go behind the sub-plot that doesn't do any good for the film. Some internal politics happening in the visual media and also the channel were Roopesh and Kabani work are also shown. But none of the three portions gets a completion except may be the story of Suhasini and Sasikumar.
Direction from Sreebala K Menon is notable especially being a newcomer in this area she showed glimpses of the talent she possess but her writing didn't reach a level that could take the film to another level. May be she wanted to narrate her story in this way but a certain level of liveliness in the script was required to keep the audience engaged throughout that did not happen.
On the acting side, one could see a controlled and restrained Dileep just like we saw in his previous film. He acted as per the demands of the character and the selection of this role is not a bad one in my view. Nikhila Vimal is the female lead who was okay as Kabani. Sreenivasan, Suhasini and Sasikumar are the supporting actors along with Lena, Sudheer Kopa and also Shankar Ramakrishnan in a cameo.
Good cinematography and a neatly edited film with perfect background score from Bijipal whose songs didn't impress me much. Overall, with the snail paced narrative and few incomplete areas explored makes Love 24 × 7 an average watch. Not disappointing but nothing exciting as well. The rating is two and a half out of five and expecting more from Sreebala as a writer and director.
Rating - 2.5 / 5

Maari Tamil Movie Review

The only saving grace in the film is Dhanush with his stylish looks and attire and above all his heroism in a larger than life character. He tries his best to infuse maximum energy into Maari but cannot save the film from sinking.
Balaji Mohan direct this film where Dhanush appear in the title protagonist role of Maari, a local goonda with a good heart. Sadly the film for a neutral audience it will be a disappointment and nothing else. Now for hardcore fans of the actor, Balaji Mohan has infused lot of punch dialogues, slow motion scenes helped by Anirudh's high octane and energy filled background score.
The film set in the backdrop of pigeon racing has Maari who is a local goon. A new police officer Arjun takes charge of the area and start digging into a murder that happened few years back as part of collecting evidence to put Maari under the bars. A local rivalry with another goon of the area and the cliched romance for our heroine for the hero are also part of the story.
Maari may cater to a select class of audience mainly fans of Dhanush and is primarily a movie made with a target viewers in mind. But for others there is nothing that makes you exciting except watching the heroics of the protagonist for a major part of the film.
Dhanush does what all he can in the best possible way to suit a larger than life goonda with all of those looks and colourful local attire.
Kajol Aggarwal has to play the traditional and cliched heroine who has to first show hatred and anger for the hero first and later fall in love with him. Vijay Yesudas makes his big screen debut as a police officer and he has not made it look bad on screen. But the writing was a bit half baked for that character. Robo Shankar as Maari's right hand was able to impress and make a good impact while rest of the actors were just okay.
Best part after Dhanush was Anirudh's rocking BGM that gave the character of Dhanush a big push. Cinematography was also on the brighter side. Some trimming was badly needed on the editing table.
I think Magic Frames and Listin Stephen has got it somewhat wrong in the selection of the script as Maari disappoints. As a die hard fan of Dhanush, you can watch it for his heroics or else I think you can very well give it a skip. The rating is two out of five.
Rating - 2 / 5

Madhura Naranaga Malayalam Movie Review

A career that started on an upward way suddenly took a downward trend way too quickly after two back to back duds at the box office. I am talking about director Sugeeth who tasted big success at the box office through Ordinary but could not repeat the same level of victory for his next two ventures 3 Dots and Onnum Mindaathay.
Now the director is back with his fourth film titled Madhura Naaranga. Keeping a low expectation based on Sugeeth's last couple of films I was expecting a bitter lemon but it proved wrong as this lemon just like the title is in fact sweet. It is also a lesson for many including myself that you cannot write off anyone based on their past. They can come back anytime and Madhura Naranaga amply justify that.
Salim, Jeevan and Kumar are thick friends sharing very good rapport. The former two are cab drivers and all three are working in UAE. Thamara, a Srilankan girl enter their life and rest of the story focus on the incidents that pass through the life of the three men as well as the girl.
The film is a clean entertainer that passes through different terrain added with every element required for a commercial film. It has humour, sentiments, emotions and it also makes you cry at times. To back up these, Madhura Naranaga has a well woven storyline and this story is narrated without giving lagness to the presentation. Romance and love are also part of the proceedings and they have been treated quite well without deviating from the main plot.
Direction is definitely on the positive side as Sugeeth has executed the story and script at his disposal with care. Giving prominence to fun and humour in the first half and the balance tilting in favour of more serious drama and sentiments in the latter half, Madhura Naranaga is neatly packed so that the audience watching the film are not heading towards the disappointing side.
Biju Menon, Kunchacko and Neeraj Madhav had a perfect chemistry between them. Humour part was handled well by the three but more by Biju and Neeraj. When it came to intense situations all three were good but Chackochan outshone the other three.
Parvathy Ratheesh makes a decent debut and had a good onscreen chemistry as a couple with Chackochan. Whoever has dubbed for the heroine deserves a word of mention here. Rest of the supporting actors like Sadhique and Aparna Nair were notable in their brief roles.
Good camera work, finely edited with good background score. Music by Yuuvh fame Sachin Sreejith duo was neatly tuned giving a perfect musical touch but the number of songs was more unnecessarily adding to the overall running time.
In a nutshell, the film gives a satisfactory feeling after coming out from the cinema halls and is recommended to every class of audience especially the family group. I am going with three and a half out of five for Madhura Naranaga and a thumbs up to Sugeeth this time. Yes, the Ordinary team is back!!!
Rating - 3.5 / 5

Acha Din Malayalam Movie Review

If the terrorists who mastermind blasts and various attacks in the country are fools like the three antagonists in the movie Acha Din, then the people who fight against such crime and missions can very well thwart many such operations.
G Marthandan after Daivathintay Swantham Cleetus directs Acha Din with Mammootty again but with a silly script from Immanuel fame Vijeesh AC and amateurish execution from the director spoils the mood. Ultimately the result is not that pleasant. The film is very short with a running time of just one hundred and eight minutes but that didn't save the film from sinking or boredom.
Durga Prasad and his wife Sheethal hailing from Jharkand are settled in Kerala for the past twenty years and the couple are expecting their first child. The protagonist who is a cleaner at Lulu Mall encounter some tough situation that he has to face and that too in a span of single day.
Well, the first and foremost problem with the film is the antagonist department. The three who are shown are too unlucky in the film that anything they plan ends up on the loosing side. The performance level expected from such roles demands a certain level of intensity in acting which was totally missing. The way they delivered the dialogues were poor. Adding to it the way the execution of the script and of course the script itself that misses the fire to take it to a level of a thriller, everything contributing to the film's downward slide.
First half has nothing in it and whatever thrills are only there in limited doses in the post interval session. There wasn't much pre-release hype around this movie and even then without any expectation, I did not find anything exciting in Acha Din.
Mammootty in terms of performance has nothing much to do and major portion of the film he is seen cycling from one location to another. For satisfying his hardcore fans, a little dose of heroism and action have been purposefully given to the actor but overall there is nothing that he could do to save the movie. Mansi Sharma as his better half is just casted for namesake while a long list of supporting actors like Renji Paniker, Kishore, Raju, Kunjan, Sudheer Karamana, Padmaraj Ratheesh and Saju Navodaya are part of the cast.
Technically too there is nothing much to boast of. Cinematography was okay while edits could have been better. Bijipal's background score did not impress that doesn't happen very often. Overall, I am on the disappointing side after watching Acha Din, and the rating is just two out of five.
Rating - 2 / 5