Immanuel - Exclusive Malayalam Movie Review

Immanuel - Exclusive Malayalam Movie Review

 Directed by     Lal Jose
Produced by     S. George
Screenplay by     A.C. Vijeesh
Story by     Pradeep Nair
Music by     Afzal Yusuf
Distributed by     Play House
Release date(s)     5 April 2013
Country     India
Language     Malayalam

 

Cast

    Mammootty as Emmanuel
    Mukesh
    Fahadh Faasil as Jeevan Raj
    Reenu Mathews as Annie
    Devi Ajith
    Aparna Nair
    Salim Kumar
    Guinness Pakru as Kavi Shivan
 

 

Story

Immanuel is the story of Immaneul who tries to cope up with MNC Insurance company and the New Gen wok ethics after the press publishing firm that he worked went broke.

 Evaluation

First things first- Immanuel is Mammootty's best outing since Best Actor which came 2 years ago. Its a typical straight forward feel good family entertainer without much gimmicks or masala. The Story is nothing revolutionary or unique. The story one-line has distant some with Rocket Singh - Salesman of the year.

Its a simple screen play beautifuly narated by Director Lal Jose, eventhough its no where near to his previous films. The surrounding of an MNC, especially an Insurance company is new to Malayali audience. The frauds, in-humane rules, fight for meeting the target has been explained in the film.

Apart from this there is a sense of Dejavu in most parts. Each & every turn that comes along are predictable. We have seen many stories of such Golden hearted Hero before, all elements find in thos movies can be find here too. But nothing appear forced or fake unlike Bavooty. The film belong to the Sathyan Anthikadu brand of feel good family dramas, but he only thing is that Immanuel is low in humor content. The movie drags here and there.

Mammooty has beautifully underplayed the role of man with Golden heart. There was nothing challenging in for him. He just needed to comedown from the over the top characters of his past few films and he did that efficiently. In an extended cameo as the main antagonist Fahadh Faasil simply rocked. Reenu Mathews has made a confident debut. The supporting cast are also good.

Songs are good, even though there was no need of the Carol song. The Background score is very good. Camera and Editing are beautiful.

Sukumari in a cameo role makes everyone's eyes wet. The claps that people gave for her is the the testimony of  what a great loss her death will be for us.

Family Audience will love this movie for sure. And for those who doesn't watch too many foreign language films this one will definitely be worth a watch.


Rating




2.75/5



Box Office - HIT

Vanitha Film Awards 2013 - Complete Winners List

Vanitha Film Awards 2013 complete Winners List

Best Actor - Fahadh Fazil [Diamond Necklace, 22 Female Kottayam]

Best Actress - Rima Kallingal [22 Female Kottayam]

Lifetime Achievement Award - Nedumudi Venu

Best Film - Usthad Hotel

Best Director - Lal Jose [Diamond Necklace]

Best Supporting Actor - Prathap Pothen [Ayalum Nganum Thammil]


Best Supporting Actress - Kaniha [Bavvotiyude Namathil]

Best Star Pair - Dulquer Salman & Nithya Menon [Usthad Hotel]

Best Debut (Male) - Dulquer Salman [Usthad Hotel]

Best Debut (Female) - Isha Talwar [Thattathin Marayathu]

Best Comedy Actor - Baburaj [Mayamohini]

Best Villain - Murali Gopi [Ee Adutha Kalathu, Thappana]

Best Singer (Male) - Nivas - [Nilamalare from Diamond Necklace]


Best Singer (Female) - Ramya Nambeeshan [Muthuchippi From Thattathin Marayathu]


Best Music Director - Shaan [Thattathin Marayathu]

Best Script Writer - Anjali Menon [Usthad Hotel]

Best Cinematographer - Shyju Khalid [22 Female Kottayam]

Awards to presented on February 16th @ Trivandrum, to be telecasted on Mazhavil Manorama on a later date

Annayum Rasoolum - Movie Review

Starring    Fahadh Fazil, Andrea, Aashique Abu, Ranjith

Directed By    Rajiv Ravi

Produced By    Seven Arts Mohan, Vinod Vijayan

Expectation

Expectations were humungous due to the Star cast, Music & more over the debut of DOP Rajeev Ravi as a director.

Story

As the name (trailer, posters etc) suggests, its the love storry of Anna (Andrea), a Christian girl, working as a salesgirl in a textile show room and Rasool (Fahad Fazil), a Muslim boy, who is a taxi driver.




The first thing we expect when a cinematographer becomes a director is beautiful visuals and Rajee Ravi didn't disappoint. The Visuals are stunning, rich and deep especially the boat jetty, hill range, Mattanchery, Fort Kochi and the journey in Jhankar, boats etc. But like all the recent debut DOP turned directors too much focus has been given on visuals rather than script. Looks like Rajeev was too obsessed with his visuals that he forget to say cut (or didn't allow to edit them out either). There are many closeup shots of the actors face, people walking, standing, gazing, staring etc. Hence the film is painfully 2 hours and 48 mnutes long. If the film was a complete entertainer like 'Thattathin Marayathu' or the lead pair had energetic chemistry like in 'Neethane en Ponvasantham' it would have been better, but since the story is more realistic it fails to grab viewers attention especially in the second half.

The first half is also long, but the terrific performances by Fahad & Andrea, well supported by the supporting cast makes it entertaining. In the second half the story takes serious turn and moves with out a direction at snail pace.

The film as a whole gives the feel of many recent romantic-village milleau films released in Tamil like Subramaniapuram, Kaathal, Angadi Theru etc.

Songs were good (some oldie-goldies has been reused). The Background and Camera was great. Editing I should say was bad, the film should have been less than 2:20hrs in length.

Fahad Fazil gave his career best performance as Rasool, even the minute expressions were treat to watch, which also got great response from the crowd.. Andrea played the character beautifully, even though dialogues were few. The supporting cast headed by Sunny Wayne also did their part well even though I don't understand the need of many of them like Ranjith's & Aashiq's as their characters doesn't have a proper graph in the movie.

The sync sound/ live recording was bad and was irritating in the initial half an hour, (the same was done brilliantly well in Shyamaprasad's 'Arike' ) but fell on the track later, still missed many of the lines, especially in long shots.

Overall the film promised too much and failed to deliver, the main culprit being the length.

I had the patience to sit through the film and i liked it, would have loved it only if the film was 30 mins shorter. But the public response is not encouraging at all, hope the makers will do preventive measures before it is too late .


My rating: A Generous 3/5

Verdict: Good (only if u have patience)

Box Office: After a terrific start, has started limping already