Movie Review-Malarvadi Arts Club

reviewed by nikhimenon@gmail.com

What should you do if you think you are talented in doing more than a task at a time?Focus on the one in which you are the best in and try to improve more,else you might end up being mediocre in everything.Doubting why i have turned philosophical all on a sudden?(C'mmon.. i have moved on,she is history,i know!) Go and watch 'Malarvadi Arts Club' and resume reading this post if you still don't trust me.

Vineeth Sreenivasan who was produced some 26 years ago by the talented,iconic script writer-director  Sreenivasan  is some one who is obsessed with lengthening his resume every now and then.After a successful singing  ( which is still going strong) carrier  and a 'passable' stint in acting ,he has turned to scripting and directing movies now.His debut movie 'Malarvadi Arts Club' was supposed to be a trend setter(atleast Dileep,Kalyan Jewellers and Radio Mango thought so!) with an all new star cast, fresh songs and an astounding story line.After watching the movie i was pretty convinced that Vineeth is also banking on the 'rent a dvd,make a movie' trend which has helped Priyadarshan,Sanjay Gupta et al mint crores back in Bollywood.

While Sanjay Gupta and co might have spend a lot more on English/French/Korean DVDs ,Vineeth sreenivasan has effectively cut a lot of cost (C'mmon..,Malayalam movies have a small market) by resorting to cheaper Dvds(thanks to moserbaer and Eros) of desi flicks like Rock On! Chennai 600628,Goa and Happy Days.

So we have 5 men who do nothing 24*7 living in an imaginary village some where around thalassery.(C'mmon, I love my native ,i have shown it in movies!,rite? thinks Vineeth !).They organises Hartals and walk in slow motion to kill time.( "I want my movie to be stylish too..the girls will go drooling over my lead men!).Oh! the movie has to run for two hours atleast,so let me add a comedy track with Suraj.("i am not good in writing comedy,let me ask suraj etta to play his favourite character.Inky-pinky-ponky...omg! he will play the 'comic goonda' in my movie..!he s gonna rock.....!").They are always in short of cash , hence they decide to start a music band to earn money. Santhosh Damodaran the lead singer can beat even Kaithapram in Kacheri  .But apart from Kumarettan who runs the local tea shop(Nedumudi Venu) no one else knows that they are such great 'pulis'.So no bookings for the show..!!Surprise surprise,Santhosh comes on tv reality show.Right from Kumarettan to goonda suraj start smsing  for him,he wins.Then comes the really surprising twist in the form of Intermission.(I liked the timing of the intermission a lot since i wanted to go to the loo badly at that point of time.)

("Oh, there are no female characters in my script.let me add two.But where?There are five guys right?let some random woman love one of them...Waah....!kyaa love story dude, tells Shaan rehman,my music director from my side! ).So we have an awesomely awesome' love story in between Purushu(not Santhosh! that's socialism for you from junior sreeni) and Geethu.They meet during one of their early ganamelas and fall in love.After her brother gets him beaten to pulp,their love ripens and they marry only after a touching' dialogue sequence between purushu and her parents.(You know, i love to make everything realistic")Twist.. Santhosh who is so famous  that even Shakira is after him dumps his friends and moves on.(Y? Watch the movie miser!!)

Now have a climax which is so different from Rock on and London Dreams since neither Salman,Ajay Devgan nor Farhan Akthar is a part of junior sreeni's Malarvadikoottam and Santhosh Damodar has to sing a Malayalam song here.For a change, we have a couple of hummable songs by Shaan Rehman but that doesn't seem good enough for a movie which banks heavily on it's music to get itself clicked.Where is the Kashmalan song?("oh,dileepettan told me that he would come himself dressed in 50 different costumes and make a promotional video with that song so that all the malayalee children would flock into the theatres playing malarvadi;like they did for Paapi Appacha").

             Coming to the technical departments of the movie, Vineeth Shrinivasan has chosen the conventional way of story telling . A lot of unwanted scenes like the one in which one of the lead men falling from height while making preparations for a programme could have been easily avoided. Sukumar’s camera also didn’t surprise us much. As far as the song visuals were concerned, there was nothing extra ordinary there too.The new comers were convincing with the guy who acted as Purushu being the pick of the lot.The character of ‘Kuttu’ is not as funny as it was supposed to be.The girls come and go after a couple of scenes. Some of the scenes were genuinely funny like the one in which Purushu first meets his love. As I mentioned before, Shaan Rehman’s songs were hummable,but it’s just not good enough. But the re recording was good. On the whole,the whole movie ends up as just another average fare which desperately tries to recreate the magic of similar ‘friendship’ movies made in our neighbouring states.

Verdict: Very Average Movie(since it is competing with other blunders like 'apoorva Ragam',otherwise i would have given it a below average tag)