Angel Jhon is good in parts....

reviewed by nikhimenon@gmail.com

                                 One advantage of going for a movie with least expectations (thanks to the poor reviews!) is that there is a possibility of you leaving the movie hall feeling satisfied. Mohanlal's fantasy adventure 'Angel Jhon' ,( heavily inspired by Jim Carrey starrer 'Bruce Almighty') when compared to his rival Padmasree Bharat Mammootty's 'Ee Pattanathil Bhootham' is enjoyable as long as it lasts.Those who have seen the latter would definitely know that it isn't much of a compliment...!

                                The protagonist is Maradona,a 21 year old guy who has a shabby life style.(who doesn't care to have a bath even once in a while, his only interersts being watching porn and misbehaving with women of twice his age..).From the first few reels itself,the audience realise that Maradona is a loser in life(not to forget an idiotically picturised song in the fifth minute of the movie).Fifty five minutes into the  movie and a few bizzare, cheesy 'comical scenes' later (which include two separate tracks involving Jagathy Sreekumar and Baiju) Maradona decides to end his life.Enter Angel Jhon( who else?Mohanlal) who gives him two options either to live his destined lifetime as God has willed with problems, or live one third of it with his every wish fulfilled at the rate of a wish per day. Expectedly,Maradona chooses the latter one (only to realise later that he had made a foolish decision!)

Angel jhon is exactly not that kind of film that you would expect from an actor of Mohanlal's calibre,but in these days of Bhootams' and jackies' anything seems to be possible!Mohanlal is actually the soul of the movie and only after his entry (a few minutes before the interval) the movie catches pace. After a rather disappointing first half(which fortunately was only 60 minutes long), none of us (the few pretty souls who were in the theatre) actually expected anything worth mentioning in the second .That is exactly the strength of this movie.The second half is somewhat entertaining and does evoke a few laughs.The scene where Salim kumar meets Angel and Maradona is a cracker.Angel jhon also manages to make a few statements in between.(like the one about the  increasing number of 'student suicides' for petty reasons).The climax was also pretty decent.It can be safely said that S.L.Puram Jayasurya has got talent.


Coming to the performances,Mohanlal with his innocence and cockiness is brilliant as Angel.Shantanu is good in a few scenes.The female lead Nithya menon is adequate.Vijayaraghavan,Jagathy sreekumar are wasted.The two songs which are credited to Ouseppachan seems to be done by his assistants as neither of the two sounded like being tuned by a national award winner.

On the whole,as one of the characters in the movie says, with a better script Angel Jhon would have been a blockbuster. In it's present form i am giving it five point five out of ten, a pretty average rating.